[copper]

fastmail's non-free service, maybe? I got it a very long time ago, mainly for the .in email address. It's been no-frills, fast, and (mostly) reliable. I'm still not sure I'd recommend it to a gmail user, but its been a good email account to have.

[rachelbythebay]

Careful - don't rely on fastmail for XMPP. I switched to them based on them having that, since I used it a lot with Gmail. Then I found out that fastmail is running some super wobbly XMPP server which kicks you off any time you really get going really quickly in a conversation.

I've opened multiple tickets, and all they can say is "sorry" and "we know about it" and "we're working on it", but actual fixes still haven't come. Having a solid chat experience obviously is not high on their priority list.

[copper]

Late reply, sorry. I never even knew they had the option of an XMPP server. For what it's worth, I find the mail experience to be both reasonable, and pretty much fat-free, which I guess is all I really need.

[vl]

I moved my domain and imported all emails from Fastmail to Google Apps because of:

1) Deficient search, the more email you keep, the more you rely on search to find something from few days to few years ago. Incredibly painful with Fastmail.

2) Lack of calendar. It's just so more convenient to have your calendar integrated with email.

3) Lack of Exchange ActiveSync support (as in protocol). This protocol allows to sync email, calendar and contacts from the same account. All these things I want to be synced to my phone. Keeping contacts and calendar in Gmail (because it has ActiveSync support) and email in Fastmail was becoming more and more frustrating.