I just got a Mac again, after a gap of about three years (I'm not particularly thrilled about this, but it just happened to be what was available to me second hand. Anyway . . .)

I've been using gmail's web mail with no problems at all, enjoying the excellent spam detection, labelling and archiving system, along with getting on for 3GB of storage. But for some reason I just got the urge to try Gyaz again. After a coupe of days use, I think I'll stick with it. And here's why:

• Gyaz is well designed. This is important, especially in the Mac market. Looking at the designer's website, it's clear to see that s/he has real visual flair. The icons are gorgeous. This may seem a minor thing, but it's important to me, and who wants to spend all day looking at an ugly piece of software as fundamental as your email client?
• Gyaz gives the user a lot of flexibility when customising its appearance. Again, this may seem a minor thing, but I appreciate the ability to change the font, size, colour and background colour of the folder and message lists, along with the compose windows. Now, Gyaz doesn't support HTML (so you won't be able to put images in your emails, for example, or italicise words and phrases), but it does allow you to alter how it displays plain old text. For example, I have my monospace font set to Lucida Grand, rather than the scratchy Monaco or Courier font families. This is part of Gyaz's USP - the ability to control the appearance of the client.
• Gyaz offers some pretty nifty client-side filtering options. This means you may never get to even see certain emails. This is a very nice touch, but its value is not quite as high as when I first used Gyaz: with PCs and email services offering more and more storage, users don't have to be quite so efficient when managing the size of the email they receive. Still, it's good for completely blacklisting certain correspondents!

Now, the bad:

• Gyaz doesn't support HTML. This means you can't insert pictures into your emails, or bullet pointed lists, italics, bold, smileys etc. etc. Similarly, any fancily formatted emails you receive will have these features stripped from them. For some, this is a blessing, but if you can't live without them, Gyaz isn't for you. Still, at least you can tell Gyaz to display plain text in whatever font you like.
• There's no IMAP support. On the website, it says there will be soon, but it said that when I last used Gyaz, so don't hold your breath. I personally don't think this is a big thing - the appeal of IMAP lessens as email accounts offer GBs of storage, but it's obviously an issue if your main email account is an IMAP account.
• There are no saved searches. The world loves labels now - configurable searches that provide a more flexible and efficient method of organising email. Gyaz still uses the frankly ancient moving to various folders method.
• I'm not sure if the junk filter works. The options are greyed out; or am I misunderstanding how it works? I don't get a huge amount of junk, but it hasn't captured any yet.

I have to admit that I'm a big fan of Gyaz. It's a simple, thoughtfully designed piece of software that perhaps lacks a few modern features. It will appeal to those who care about how their software looks, and who like to control its appearance. Its menus and preferences are a joy to use, and it follows the Mac maxim 'it just works' a lot more than some Mac products I could mention.