Google Mail is a fantastic online email client that enables you to read and write email from just about any web browser. The big advantage is that if you are working from a host PC, you can temporarily check your latest email without requiring an email client. You can also get Google Mail to login to your standard email accounts and migrate email to your online account, for when you are away on the road.

In the UK, Sky have partnered with Google to offer email to their broadband subscribers. It’s also the email system of choice when we need to recommend an account to our web users. However, this doesn’t mean that accessing your email from a web browser is the most ideal situation for every user.

If you send a number of emails, particularly to a group of users, you’ll want to access your email from your desktop, within an email client. Whilst it’s possible to download your Google Mail to your regular email client, if you use Google Mail as your primary email account, you may seek a more appropriate option.

Mailplane is an email client that integrates Google Mail in to a standalone email client. Think Apple Mail but Google Mail instead. Better still, the interface supports the template you’ll have chosen for your Google Mail account, so it’s visually very appealing. You can send emails with embedded images and even your own screencast.

Note that this is a Mac OS X release. A Windows version is unavailable but is in discussion.