Microsoft has just launched a completely new web email service called Outlook, which is inspired by Office Outlook and Microsoft’s Metro UI.The new interface is clean and simple focusing primarily on what matters, your email.
Outlook is a re-imagination of your Hotmail and it is focused on being touch friendly and intends to take on GMail. You can access Outlook by heading over to www.outlook.com and your Hotmail inbox will be transformed into the new interface.
The Metro inspired tiled interface is clutter free and well organized. When you select an email you are presented with a conversation view from where you can easily create labels, filters and operators. You can easily navigate through the interface using a host of keyboard shortcuts which you can edit to suite your preference.
Outlook quickly syncs with your Facebook or Google accounts to bring in your contact’s photos and information. You can even import your contact information through a physical (csv) file. We expect more importing options will be available as the service is improved.
Outlook also makes email more personal. The service is capable of filtering out content it may recognize as clutter and label them separately so you can get to emails like newsletters at a later time. If you want you can even unsubscribe from messages you don’t want to see in future and Outlook will make sure your inbox stays clean.
While Outlook is still a preview release you can expect it to continue to evolve in the coming months leading up to the release of Windows 8. Features like Calendar and SkyDrive which are also available as tiles currently takes you to the old versions, and we are sure that Microsoft is working hard at building new versions of those web services as well.
So head over to the Outlook Preview right now and let us know what you think of Microsoft’s latest take on their web email service.