Mass-market service providers such as CompuServe and America Online are a good alternative for businesspeople who have more to do than deal with teh Internet. A commercial service makes it easy to get online, take care of your mail, and get back to work. With the exception of MCI Mail, all of the services reviewed here offer news, hobby groups, reference works -- and e-mail.
1-800-827-6364
Cost: $9.95 per month including five hours free access time (no per-message charge); $2.95 each additional hour.
Ease of Use: Good. Simply point and click to read and send messages. AOL popularized the use of graphics online, but it won't necessarily increase your productivity. You can still waste plenty of time searching through pretty menus.
Address Book: Poor. You can keep your own list of addresses here, but why bother? AOL doesn't alphabetize them and you can't add such details as phone numbers and business addresses.
Organizational Skills: Poor. AOL's software uses a folder approach, but if you receive and store a significant amount of mil its slow performance and inability to filter messages will frustrate you.
Messaging: Good. You can compose and read messages offline; use the "flash session" feature to upload and download messages automatically.
Attachments: Good. AOL lets you send any kind of large attached file, including Internet MIME files. This feature alone puts it ahead of CompuServe and Prodigy. One limitation: you can send just one attachment per message.
Bottom Line: With its cute graphics and reasonable prices, AOL is handy for occasional e-mail use and a real asset for sending attached files. Heavy users will quickly become annoyed by its disorganized post office and address book.
1-800-848-8199
Cost: $9.95 per month for 3 hours (additional hours $2.95 each)or $24.95 per month for 20 hours (additional hours $1.95 each).
Ease of Use: Passable. Struggling to keep up, much of CompuServe's interface belies its age. One exception: forwarding and replying to messages is a snap.
Address Book: Poor. Like AOL, there's no consideration for adding phone numbers and regular mailing addresses.
Organizational Skills: Poor. Moving messages around among folders is difficult. If you need to track messages, the software won't help you.
Messaging: Adequate. You can compose and edit messages offline, as well as download e-mail and then sign off to save connection charges.
Attachments: Poor. CompuServe cannot handle Internet MIME attachments, restricting it to members.
Bottom Line: CompuServe has the most established online service, and its age shows. It has tried to keep its prices competitive. The regular monthly plan allows you to send 90 free messages of up to three pages each. But once you exceed the limit, you'll feel as if you're getting "nickel and dimed" to death.
1-800-776-3449
Cost: $9.95 per month for five hours of access time or $30 per month for 30 hours plus $2.95 for each additional hour (no per-message charge).
Ease of Use: Mediocre. Advertising tends to clog Prodigy's interface, although recently the company has done much to improve its look and performance.
Address Book: Adequate. As with CompuServe and AOL, you don't get a lot of detail in Prodigy's address book. But it does store Internet addresses.
Organizational Skills: Mediocre. You can't route your mail or search through stacks of stored messages.
Messaging: Mixed. To read mail offline you must download Prodigy's $14.95 E-Mail Connection software. It's worth it, especially of you have lots of mail traffic. But it should be part of the free software.
Attachments: Poor. Like many other service providers, Prodigy doesn't yet support MIME attachments for Internet mail.
Bottom Line: While it's improving, Prodigy has a way to go before it delivers full e-mail capabilities. You can easily set up mailing lists, however, and a spell-checker helps catch typos.
Email
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
