Comparing Google services with Outlook.com (specifically calendar and mail)

[lordofpi]

I've been on the HTC Windows Phone 8X since January after having the original Droid since 2009, and I absolutely love it. Since I have up on MS back in 2009 ever coming out with a new version of Windows Mobile, I switched everything over to Google's services. Now that I am back in the MS ecosystem, I am contemplating completely switching back (right now I am using syncing between Gmail/Google Services and my devices) to make things more cohesive and all in one place.

My questions are as follows:

(1) Is Outlook.com calendar superior to Google Calendar? I am a power user of Google Calendar (at least IMO), and I have multiple calendars with lots of odd repeating dependencies, reminders, etc. I won't switch if I am losing some major functionality.

(2) Will all my archives transfer okay? I have some deep past events that I like to keep for reference purposes.

(3) Has MS fixed it so that we can do a "Send as...." when sending e-mails as I can do with Gmail? I have about 6 e-mail address that I use for different purposes, and then are not to get crisscrossed. As a follow-up, does this functionality follow through with my devices (WP8 and my Surface Pro's Mail app)?

(4) To those who have switched completely, are there any regrets that you have?



I am getting so tired of having to change platforms every few years. I've gone from the Franklin Day Planner to the Palm Pilot to MS Outlook to Google and now I am considering returning to MS. I would like to do it for keeps if I can. Thanks all.

 

[Infinicat]

1) I wouldn’t say one is superior to the other; functionally they’re pretty much identical except that Outlook.com’s calendar doesn’t support SMS notifications. If you are talking about their web interfaces, though, there are several things that I miss in Outlook.com; for example, when you create an event, Google Calendar lets you use specify different start- and end time zones.

2) You can get a zipped dump of your calendars from Google and try it for yourself.

3) Yes. Now you can send emails using your Outlook.com aliases as well as your custom From addresses (for which you can also specify external SMTP servers). You can also choose your preferred email address for use with EAS clients. (The Windows 8 Mail app uses DeltaSync to fetch your list of email addresses so you can choose any one of them when you send emails.)

4) Yes. First, email searching on Outlook.com is painfully slow. Second, Outlook.com’s filters are much simpler than Gmail’s (it does let you create time-based rules but then you can do them with Google Apps Script too). Third, Outlook.com doesn’t support IMAP at this time (I did notice imap.live-int.com so I guess it’s under development).

4+) I should also mention here that there is something—if you’re concerned about your privacy—that you may find annoying with the Outlook.com web interface: it gives you an option to block external images, but that choice won’t work for messages from Facebook (do a search on Microsoft Answers forums and see how many users have complained about this); actually in the past it didn’t work for messages from several other newsletter compaigns, either. To be fair, Google does the same thing for messages from YouTube, but I think I should mention this nevertheless.

 

[rdubmu]

My questions are as follows:

(1) Is Outlook.com calendar superior to Google Calendar? I am a power user of Google Calendar (at least IMO), and I have multiple calendars with lots of odd repeating dependencies, reminders, etc. I won't switch if I am losing some major functionality

I find the Google Calendar web interface much superior to the Outlook.com web interface. But the kicker is that Outlook 2013 trumps both of them. If you have a Windows 7 or 8 computer, Outlook 2013 sync's with outlook.com and you have have many different combinations when it comes to repeating reminders.

(2) Will all my archives transfer okay? I have some deep past events that I like to keep for reference purposes.

I am not sure if a transfer will work or not, i havent tried it.

(3) Has MS fixed it so that we can do a "Send as...." when sending e-mails as I can do with Gmail? I have about 6 e-mail address that I use for different purposes, and then are not to get crisscrossed. As a follow-up, does this functionality follow through with my devices (WP8 and my Surface Pro's Mail app)?

You can send from any alias but not more than one. if you have to send from 6 different emails, i would set each one up seperately.

(4) To those who have switched completely, are there any regrets that you have?

I don't have any regrets, I find the email portion to outlook much superior to gmail. I also like the ability to sync my calendar perfectly to Outlook.com

I am getting so tired of having to change platforms every few years. I've gone from the Franklin Day Planner to the Palm Pilot to MS Outlook to Google and now I am considering returning to MS. I would like to do it for keeps if I can. Thanks all.

I still use my pen and paper Franklin Covey Planner. There is nothing better than pen and paper when it comes to a to do list. I find that Outlook 2013 is the best of all world synced across outlook.com and its devices (surface pro, Outlook.com and windows phone 8)

 

[Narse77]

All in all I am very happy with my switch from Google to Outlook.com. As said in earlier posts use Outlook 2013 if you need more functionality out of the Cal.