Yahoo recently released it chat built into its email. At first I was a little skeptical since I thought they were just copying Google. But if think about it, they’re just trying to provide their customers with the best service out there. It’s really the competition that makes them improve themselves. Better for us 
On the whole, I think it’s a very good service. Not too many drawbacks, and those that are, are mostly minor. So here’s my review:
Nice Setup: I like the way it is merges into your email. I mean one minute you’re checking your email and the next talking to a old buddy who you haven’t talked to since you were 5. Unlike the external Yahoo application, you don’t have to change windows to chat and check email. Another plus feature of this would be that you can just ctrl+tab to another tab in a browser supporting tabs (wow… I think I’ll put the word tab in there again huh? TAB). On the other hand, for those of us who hate using the mouse when you’re relaxing and use the Alt+Tab a lot, this can cause a problem. As of now, I have not found a keyboard shortcut to change between the different chat tabs. So I have to use the mouse, which is a drawback I guess.
Old Version: One of the biggest drawbacks of this new feature is that it doesnt work with the old email version. I could find no way in which to send someone a message through inbox. I guess it is justifiable since it would need the tabs to display the messages. It wouldn’t be practical to reload the page every time you get a message. A person like me who can talk to 8 people at the same time, it’d be hell because it’d refresh after every second. On the other hand, I can’t blame people who have the older version, since it is much better to some extent.
Smileys and Fonts: One of the best features of the inbuilt Yahoo Chat is that it supports all the smileys. One of the reasons I love Y! chat itself is because of its smileys. They have the best smileys around. Probably knowing this, they’ve added all the smileys in the inbuilt chat. Even the hidden ones. A drawback would be that it only supports a few fonts. Why they put the “symbol” font in there, I don’t know. But in the end, I generally just use the basic ones, so I think one can live with it.
CPU usage: A big thing to consider while judging this is whether or not it’s heavy on the browser and the CPU. I used it for quite sometime, and it seems pretty fine to me. Doesn’t slow my browser in anyway, even if you receive a new message. I think ion the whole, it uses less resources than the actual Y! Messenger (the application).
Sound and Flashes: As I mentioned earlier, this feature does not work with the old version of Yahoo mail. It works with the new one with the tabs and everything. Thus it uses those features to indicate that you have a message. If you’re on another tab (in Yahoomail itself, like if your checking email) then it shows the tab you received a message from as orange, like the old application. On the other hand, if you’re on a totally different tab (not in Yahoomail at all) in a browser that supports multi tabbing, it only makes a sound and shows the tab in italics. It shows that “XYZ has sent you a message” but only for a second after the message has been received. After that it goes to the usual Yahoo! Mail Beta … This could be seen as a boon and a bane. On one hand, for those of you who hate the long noise that the IM makes when you receive a message, this is really good. It’s just a short beep. But I guess that a lot of those can be annoying too. While in Yahoo Messenger you can go to preferences and turn off the sound, in this I couldn’t find a single way to turn the noise off. On the other hand, for those who like the loud noises and big flashing windows, this isn’t your thing.
Email Conversion: A very very helpful feature of this tool is that you can easily convert all your chat conversations into emails and send them. For a person like me who saves all his IM conversations (just in case I need something written in them) this is a very helpful feature. With a few easy clicks you can send yourself or anyone else the email conversation. I liked it a lot. Bravo to Yahoo for that.
Offliners: Besides Smileys, what distinguishes (or used to since AIM also has this) is the Offline Messages. It’s just so great to send a few offliners to friends. BAH! Email takes too long, too lazy. Luckily, even though you’re in the inbox and can easily send an email, if you’re just a bum and want to send an offliner, you can! 
. Sadly, this takes a little longer than it would in the Y! Messenger Application. Since the contact is not online, it does not appear in the contacts dropdown menu. Therefore you have to click on contacts, search through all your contacts and find the contact you want to send an offliner to and then click on the gray face. A new tab will now open and you can send all the offliners you want. This might be a problem if you want to send the same message to numerous people. Like people in the same list, so you’re going to have to send them individually. BAH!!
Minor DrawbacksThere are two minor drawbacks which I found. Even though they are minor, they are still important to me.
1) Any contact from your Contacts who has a Yahoo ID and is online will appear in your drop down list. Unlike Yahoo Messenger where you can delete contacts from your lists, you really can’t do anything about this. Therefore, you will forcefully see the people who stay on 24/7 on their cell phones but whine if you send them a message. Talking about lists, you don’t have those either.
2) The screen is too big. When I’m talking to someone, I sometimes prefer that my screen is small so that the conversation is least visible. But this screen is like a half a page big, which sucks for privacy issue. I know your thinking, well; reduce the size of the window (browser). Meh! I’m not too keen with that because when I’m chatting I like to do other stuff, write, read articles etc. I hate small windows (unless for IM’s) so it’s like a conflict there. Plus, if you make it too small, the setup starts screwing up. For most people I don’t think this will be a major issue, but for me it surely is. One of the reasons I won’t be using this feature unless I’m too lazy to sign into Y! Messenger and I’m already in my inbox.
OVerall, I give this feature a 3.5 out of 5.
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(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
