So how good is Google Mail?

Not great, is Jack Schofield’s verdict. This is a very clear, critical evaluation. He concludes:

“To sum up, Gmail flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which offers two ways to handle email: a slow but simple web-based system, accessible from anywhere, and a faster, more powerful approach based on downloading mail to a PC. At the moment, Gmail comes somewhere between the two. But it is not as simple as a web-based mail service should be, and is not as powerful as a PC-based one can be. If the compromise works for you, it’s a brilliant innovation. If it doesn’t, it could be a terrible mistake.”

Thanks, Jack. I won’t be using it. Could this be the first thing Google got wrong?