The Bat , the best ?

[dantheman]

After reading the kudos for The Bat here at Donation Coder, i decided to give it a spin again and must say i'm impressed!  Just sent the company an email to say so and mentionned the fact that it was thanks to DC that i decided to try it again.

Is The Bat, The Best?  Big question!

After trying and purchasing Poco, Barca, Opera. Incredimail and Outlook, i must say that The Bat (Home ed.) will be looked at closely during this trial period.

Already, i've noticed that the Home Edition does not have the spell checker feature that the Pro one has.  The import/export feature for Calendar seems to be missing...

Outlook and Thunderbird are IMO hard to beat:

1. Thunderbird for price (free!), it's good looks and effectiveness in handling IMAP. 
2. Outlook for the many addons like Copernic Desktop Search, Knockout and Desktask (all freeware!)
You also have many excellent sync programs out there that work quite well with Outlook: Intellisync (Yahoo!), Plaxo and Airset.com  These last elements make Outlook a very hard one to challenge!  If i were to consider Outlook application by itself it wouldn't be so bad (yet still pretty tough!).

The decision in favour of The Bat Home ed. will be difficult!

[JeffK]

And of course you will refrain from purchasing TheBat! until I organise your Christmas gift won't you?

Jeff

[mouser]

the home version does have spell checker, they've just made it so you have to download it separately for the home version.
it's their way of trying to give the pro users some extra convenience and justify the price.
you could look at it as annoying or else a reasonable way to differentiate user types without effective functionality..

either way, i *think* that as a home user you can just download the normal full pro download and use home license key to active home features, without having to do the separate downloads.

the review has a page showing differences between the home and pro.
http://www.ritlabs.c...ucts/thebat/diff.php

"For the Home Edition spell checker dictionaries can be downloaded separately, they are included in the International Pack. In the Professional Edition the dictionaries are a part of the standard installation file."

like i said though, i think everyone can really download pro version to avoid this need to download separately.. i think.


thanks for reminding me about all the addons for outlook - i meant to mention that in the review but forgot.. i will add it.

i agree that it's not an easy decision!

[dantheman]

JeffK,

In all likelyhood, yes, i will purchase The Bat at pre-Christmas price!
Anything other than MSN is a definite and worthy investment.

Thanks again for the gift and acceptance to this great forum and group!




Mouser,

Forgot to mention that Copernic Desktop Search also does an excellent job for Thunderbird (still to be perfected).
One of the nicest features is the direct search to Contact list in either Outlook, OE or Thunderbird with quick preview of details.

[dantheman]

Can someone tell me how to work offline with The Bat ?

Also, is it possible to import / export calendar data with it ?

Thank you!