Like most other web sites, my experience with GMail was more out of compulsion, than choice. In early half of 2007, I had already got a couple of invites for GMail, from my friends, and while I did accept it and registered myself as ratnakar.techie, I was not really an enthusiastic user of it.
No it was due to any aversion to Google, but I had been using Hotmail since 1999 onwards, and some how I never saw any solid reason to leave it. It was when I was in Korea, that my company there blocked all mail clients, out of security compulsions. Fortunately I was able to access Gmail, through a HTTPS client. I tried same for Hotmail also, but it did not work. Though I have a Yahoo mail account, I use it only for personal purposes. So thats how GMail became my default mail account. Its been close to 2 years since I am using GMail, and I must say I have no issues with it.
The Inbox has a good storage space, and can easily store a large quantity of mails. The best part is that if you need to search for some important information in your older mails, you have the Search Mail facility. So one can avoid having to browse mails to see where you have that information. Considering that on average, I have around 2000 mails lying in my inbox, this feature helps me search things faster. Even if you have deleted the earlier mails, you could still search for it in the trash box.
One area where GMail is pretty good is in it’s handling of Spam Mail. Large amounts of junk and spam mail are automatically diverted to the spam folder, and that means you dont have to spend your time, deleting all junk mails. Also allowing the user to mark unwanted mails as Spam, makes sure you dont have to be bothered about those mails promsing you an instant fortune from some ex African dictator. Something which was a big headache for me in Hotmail, as almost every day, I had to delete a majority of the junk mail I was getting.
Another helpful feature is theSearch Web feature, trust me my Google usage has come down quite drastically after this. I need information, I just search directly from GMail itself, rather than having to open another window just to do a search. However regarding grouping of mails, in selected categories is better in Hotmail and Yahoo I must say. GMail does have a labels Option, but still the mail is shown as in your Inbox. And even if you click on a label, browsing is not too convenient there. In Yahoo or Hotmail, I could just access the specific folder and browse through the mails there.
Integration of GMail with other Google services like Documents, Photos, Reader, Translator is another plus point. So I am working on a mail and I need access to a document I stored in Google Documents, I just need to click on the link there. However many workplaces have blocked Google Documents, as they are wary of sharing sensitive information on a public place. So make sure your workplace allows this. Also if you have lots of older mails, which you do not want to delete, but store them separately, so as to reduce the clutter in your inbox, using the Archive feature. You could select the mails you dont want to be deleted, and archive them in All Mail folder. In a way this reduces the clutter in your inbox, without having to check out which files to delete, and which not to.
Gmail has an inbuilt messenger, from where you can chat directly to your friends, without having to download the GTalk. This is helpful at work places, which do not allow messengers to be downloaded. However many workplaces nowadays do block the inbuilt messenger also. Interestingly Yahoo also has followed suit, and now allows you to chat directly from it’s inbox, however it does not store the conversations unlike GMail. I wonder though why Hotmail still has not yet come out with this feature. Another helpful feature is allowing you to access mails from your other email accounts directly into your GMail inbox. Again while I am able to access from Yahoo easily, I have never been able to access those in my Hotmail account.
All in all, I would say the switch to GMail, though out of compulsion, has proved to be pretty good, and right now I am quite satisfied with it.