Blackberry Email Dilemma

I still remember sitting in my University's computer lab during the spring of 1996, when I opened up my first personal email account - a free Yahoo! account. For almost 15 years, that Yahoo! account has been my primary personal account, and I have been very happy with it. (I had a brief issues many years ago when my Yahoo! Mail account reached its limit, so I opened up a second account that I only used for a short time). I have fifteen years of my life stored in this account, including thousands of messages from friends, relatives and my wife. I have many thousands of emails from my wife saved in my email account, and I don't want to lose them. I like having all of my communications saved in one place.

Almost 2 1/2 years ago, I got my first Blackberry. I'm happy with my Blackberry too. Frankly, my Blackberry has become an indispensable part of my life; where I go, it goes. My Blackberry is connected to my law firm's network, so I always have access to my work email (as well as some other work apps). But I also use my Blackberry for personal email and general web use.

That leads to my dilemma - Yahoo! Mail is absolutely terrible on the Blackberry. For the last two years, I've just put up with the terrible Blackberry interface. I hardly use my personal email when I am away from a computer. Why? Because I am attached to my Y! Mail account and I don't want to switch to another provider.

However, now I'm sick of the problem. I'm sick of barely being able to send personal emails when I'm away from a full computer. I'm sick of needing to tell my wife that I'll be in meetings most of the day, so if she needs to email me, she needs to use another email address. I'm sick of the slow, virtually unusable Y! Mail interface. I'm sick of the solutions that Yahoo! offers that are unacceptable over a secure network.

Yahoo!, maybe you're reading this. If you are, you need a better solution for Blackberry users. You're losing loyal customers. A lot of us.

But, assuming that Yahoo! doesn't get on the ball, I'm trying to decide what to switch my personal email to another provider - probably either Hotmail or Gmail. So, my dilemma...which one should I choose?

Hotmail is owned by Microsoft. Gmail is owned by Google.

Gmail gives the impression that they rule the world of free internet based email, but statistically Hotmail probably has the edge.

Hotmail overs unlimited storage. Gmail offers just under 7.5 gb, but it is constantly growing.

Hotmail allows attachments of up to 50 mb. Gmail allows attachments up to 25 mb.

Hotmail generally allows any emails to come to your account. Gmail has certain restrictions (no executable files, can't send some thing to yourself, etc.).

Hotmail allows 20 gb of file storage. Gmail allows 1 gb of file storage, but allows users to rent more space. Both services encourage users to store files online instead of using a hard drive.

Gmail is cooler.

Hotmail has more users.

Gmail is more customizable.

Hotmail operates much like Outlook.

Gmail uses a strange "conversation" file system.

I know that Gmail has a great Blackberry user interface - a really, really great Blackberry interface (this is a very, very important factor).

I hear Hotmail's Blackberry interface is good, but I haven't tried it.

It seems that Google may be more committed to Gmail than Microsoft is to Hotmail (but I don't know what goes on behind closed doors).

I don't particularly trust either company with my privacy.

Y! Mail, you would make this so much easier if you would just release a usable Blackberry app.

Any useful insights regarding my dilemma would be appreciated.

UPDATE:

I can link the email account for this blog (Blogger is owned by Google) with my "traditional" personal Gmail account. That may (or may not) be useful.