I was feeling adventurous yesterday and decided to try a different mail client. I’ve been using Apple Mail, and as much as I love it, it’s just not a full-featured email client. I need better filters, better spam handling, and so forth.

Granted, this wasn’t an issue a few years ago when I started using Mail. But I feel like I’ve outgrown Mail’s capabilities, and that I could use more.

Enter the search for a better email client. Yesterday I gave both Mailsmith and Thunderbird a try, and I’ve noticed something. As much as I want to use these, it’s almost like I can’t. The siren song of Apple’s tight software/hardware integration is nigh impossible to resist.

And it’s not just the software integration. Having iTunes sync with your iPod is just magical. Making the switch to a PSP was tough, but worth it in the end. The compelling factor in that, though, was that all my music got converted to MP3’s in the process. I think I can apply the same logic to getting a new mail client. Mailsmith stores mail in an mbox format, which is plenty open. In the end, it all comes down to making the switch, and just making sure that whatever you switch to, you can switch out of it when you need to.