This is the follow up post to my previous undertaking to test Mailbox as a new email client for my Android powered smartphone (The new OnePlus One btw).
If you read my previous post you’ll know that I started this testing phase enthusiastically and with all the right reasons. I even had a ready made list for possible pro’s and con’s that I would encounter. It was go time….After disabling my Gmail application I waited with baited breath for the gentle pinging sound of new emails lapping at the shores (thundering more likely) of my inbox.
I remember writing “I’ll be using Mailbox for the foreseeable future…” as it turns out, this was probably the most short-sighted sentence I have ever written. Let’s get into it.
The Pro’s of Mailbox
As expected the first uses were sublime. “Ah, i’ll snooze you until this afternoon and you, Mr. so and so, can wait until tomorrow…” Spam was swiped right and left to my hearts content and my new email system was turning out to be a major success. Life was peachy. The interface, as already mentioned, is gorgeous and overall email was in fact becoming fun. It really was. Until…
The Con’s of Mailbox
…I had to send myself an email. Now you know that even with all today’s file sending applications (Drive, Dropbox, Pushbullet – all of which I use) it is sometimes more convenient to send yourself a quick image off your PC via email. So that’s what I did and to my utter shock I found that although I could clearly see my attached image on Mailbox – I couldn’t download it.
WTH?!
Frustrated I tried in vain for another four minutes (read – “lifetime”) to get this right and I couldn’t. I’m no slouch with tech so this was a huge red flag for me. What did this mean for document’s – can you open them? Can you download them? I didn’t get the time to answer this flood of new questions that arose.
The final nail in the coffin – because you only get one chance these days – came when I was on the road and needed to copy a phone number from an email so that I could paste it into my dialer’s number pad.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t believe it. Why I could not select the text from the body of the email and copy it remains a mystery.
Two days and much wizardry later I got it right but by then the love affair was over. Two things was all it took to turn me away from Mailbox.
The final thoughts on my Mailbox Review:
Mailbox is like a beautiful prototype car that sits immaculately on the showroom floor. Great to look at – but you can’t drive it because it hasn’t got an engine inside.
Ultimately if email is not functional then it’s not worth my time. The Mailbox design team can dress it up in the best possible clothes (and they really, really, have) but if I can’t download images to my phone and copy and paste text from the body of the email then I can’t use it.Perhaps I’ve been spoilt with Gmail’s functionality.
It’s sad because I would almost certainly still be using Mailbox if these, standard features of the modern smartphone, were included.
Till then. Hello Gmail, it turns out you had the right stuff all along…
