The inside of an Econet Mail inbox and our take on it

L.S.M Kabweza Avatar

So, finally after a back and forth with support@econetmail.com, we finally logged into the new Econet mail service today. For those of you who haven’t received logins yet, (or who don’t use Econet lines) we’ve included some screenshots below.

Our first impression of the system? It’s a modern email system with a simple AND easy-to-navigate interface. It’s designed in a minimalist fashion that makes it look very clean. Also opens pages very fast like a typical modern webmail application. In short, we like it!

But loving it doesn’t mean we’ll start using it right away. There’s no compelling reason for us right now. And this ‘phone number as email address’ concept hasn’t quite hit us as convenient yet. Who knows, that might change.

Compared to email systems like Gmail, Yahoo & MSN, well, here’s a summary of the most notable features: It has a calendar, tasks, notes, filters, email forwarding, auto replies, and support for external mail accounts. It’s also not advert supported (at least not yet), so that makes for very a clean interface.

It lacks a ‘Send-as’ feature which is becoming common in mail systems, chat, and we can’t say how powerful the spam filter is. What might probably be a deal breaker for a lot of users though is the lack of POP or IMAP support.

The ‘Search’ feature also seems broken. We populated our inbox with lots of Google News alerts and an email from my Techzim account, but search for both ‘Google’ and ‘Kabweza’ yielded no results. Another strange thing is that we’re used to a ‘Mark as unread’ option in most mail systems. We almost couldn’t find this option here because Econet Mail calls it “Mark as new’.

That’s our first take. If you’ve used the system, we’d love to know your opinion. If you haven’t, well, what do you think based on these screenshots:

The Econet Mail login
The Econet Mail login

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The Econet Mail inbox
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The Econet Mail calendar interface
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The Econet Mail tasks interface
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The search options
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A search results page showing no results for the term 'Google', despite there being several such emails in the inbox
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The settings page. Shows auto reply, fowarding, and filtering options.

26 comments

  1. econetmail.com support

    Hi there

    This product has full POP3 / IMAP and SMTP support.

    The server address to use is : secure.emailsrvr.com

    All of these protocols require authentication.

    Regards,

    Econetmail.com Team.

  2. Kabweza

    hey, glad it has POP/IMAP support. Would be good to have those options available in settings dialog box so users know.

  3. XT

    I haven’t personally had the pleasure of actually using the e-mail account (because i haven’t received the login details).However from the above screenshots it looks like a pretty decent e-mail system for starters.Adoption is another thing altogether!I won’t be letting go of my Gmail account any time soon for practical reasons!!!

  4. ngoni

    i gt a txt saying i wd gt my log-in credentials via sms last week sunday and uptil now nthn has showed up in my inbox.
    gt on with it already econet, or stop makin empty promises.
    [comment edited]

  5. Econetmail.com Team

    Good day Ngoni

    Please email your number to support@econetmail.com and I will make sure you get your sms today.

    Regards,

    Econetmail.com Team.

  6. Taps

    Hi Econet guys. Since we have you hear can I ask if your prices for broadband will be reveiwed soon because I loaded up 5mb of data and only got to use the email for 30min before it drained my account.

    It just puzzles me how a small company like Africom offers 1gig for $15 without even a complete fibre network and yet econet with 50000+ broadband users and a comlete fibre cable charge 6 times more!

  7. Kurai

    From the screen shot above, its a decent one. but i think the idea of the phone number is a bit out of order, its difficult and unattractive. Using names is more funky. Econet might need to offer an option to upgrade to a name.

  8. Kurai

    and the mail should be available to all users who want it, i would like to test one (not restricted to network users)

  9. Joe Black

    Why, if I was Econet, want to make this product available to someone who isn’t even on my network? It’s a service for Econet users, isn’t that simple enough?

  10. gwinyai

    hi i hvnt recieved my email setting is there anything i should do first or its going to be automatically sent

  11. Kabweza

    try sending Econet your mobile number in an email to support@econetmail.com.

  12. nyasha

    Nice they seem to be using Zimbra pretty cool. Heavy on the download though!

  13. Jay

    Is the service available 2 pay as go broadband subs?
    Since the mail service is offered by a econet, is it not possible to get new email straight to your phone just like an sms. They shld intro stuff that would make users move gmail etc.

  14. Max

    They’d have to be crazy to make it available to anyone outside their network. basic business.

    Screen shots look alright, but a decent spam filter is an absolute must for me…and no search? i get 30 – 50 emails a day…no search is a nightmare!

  15. Kurai

    Vodacom SA has a similar offering, i think its cool to receive you mail on the go. Pity I cant use it, my fone is a first generation chidhina. lol

  16. Lee Masuka

    I had a lot of people pressuring me on how to join facebook, soon after the launch of 3G. In Kuwadzana even jiggies sellers are on facebook on their Zhing Zhong. But the boring steps of first registering an email address (i dont want mobile number) was so boring. Most Zhing Zhong phones couldn’t open gmail (my favorite. I hope this website (ecomail) opens on Zhing Zhong phones

  17. Nyasha

    i got the login details but can’t login. I keep returning tot the “Login failed” page and am now getting fed up. I hope that glitch can be fixed. The issue of using the phone number is only convenient to me but its so dull to anyone wanting to link up with me. They could easier use something like nyasha@econetmail.com then link my econent phonenumber to that address so that i get e-mails on the go especially sms notification for incoming mails. That may prompt me to divert some of my mail from my gmail which i’ve been using loyally since it was launched on 1 April 2004.

    1. Anonymous

      had same issue the first few days. contacted the Ecnet guys & they fixed it. Wonder what it is though, and how many users get “fed up” and just give up.

  18. Polite

    VE bn tryn to log in bt i jc cant,it kps stating tht bad 400,log in failed

  19. Hmudekwa

    hav received the login details,bt can’t login coz it kips on saying failed ,failed,failed.

  20. 0775605997

    its actually my first time surfing, so i could really use your help on this

  21. Simba

    Guys am on a wimax kit and Africom is supporting it. They have now moved to Econet fibre link and my outlook e mail add hosted by netconnect is no longer sending or recieving. Any ideas

  22. 0773266189

    hi there, this is the right and perfetc thing aver to come, but l have some problems with the password thing l need to change it to a more friendly one how do l go about it, yours is difficult to master.

  23. Brianzmac

    how can i use econetmail on my phone

  24. Schneider Kadiki

    sir i am desparate looking for help for my son . he has heart condition ( asd )’a hole in his heart ‘ he require surgury’ who can i talk to or write’

  25. Anonymous

    i’m in mozambique and would like to access my econetmail account but it’s proving to be impossible.

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