Five ways Outlook.com trumps Gmail - and one way it doesn't

As it turns out, quite a bit. I've spent the last several days test-driving the new service, and while it's far from perfect, Outlook.com actually offers a number of features that could lure business users away from Gmail.

Here are five areas where I think Outlook.com beats Gmail -- and one where, unfortunately, it comes up short.

1. More storage, larger attachments

Gmail gives you 10GB of email storage space and limits you to attachments of 25MB or less.

Outlook.com puts no cap on email storage and lets you send attachments as large as 100MB. In fact, if you link up to your SkyDrive account, you can bump up to 300MB attachments.

2. Smarter filtering

Right out of the box, Outlook automatically sorts incoming messages into buckets like Documents, Photos, and Shipping Updates. One click is all it takes to see all the messages that meet those criteria.

This feature is called Quick Views, and it's insanely handy. Sure, you can accomplish the same thing via Gmail's labels and filters, but this does the work for you.

Outlook.com also offers folders, a huge plus for users who never much cared for Gmail's labels-only system.

3. Better looking

Although Google has made some strides in improving Gmail's appearance, it continues to be a cluttered, homely mess.