Xobni Plus for Outlook [Review]
- by The Geek
Overview
Xobni Plus is an addin that will bring a sidebar to Outlook which allows you to search through your inbox and contacts a lot easier. It provides the ability to search and keep track of your favorite social networks. Searching with Xobni is a lot more powerful than the default search feature in Outlook. It let’s you drill down your searches to conversations, email, links, and attachments. It now supports Outlook 2010 both 32 & 64-bit versions.
Installation & Setup
Installation is easy following the wizard. After completing the wizard you can tell you’re friends on Facebook and Twitter that you are now using it. You can also decide to join their Product Improvement Program if you want.
After installation when you open Outlook, Xobni appears as a sidebar on the right side. Don’t worry about it always being in the way, as you can hide it if you need more room for other Outlook functions.
After Xobni free is installed, you can upgrade to the Plus version at any time.
A new window will open up and you can use your Credit Card, PayPal, or redeem a code if you have one.
Features & Use
Where to begin with the amount of features available in Xobni Plus? It really has an amazing amount of cool features. Of course you’ll have all of the features of the Free Version which we previously covered…and a lot more.
After Xobni is installed you’ll notice a section for it on the Ribbon. From here you can search Xobni, show or hide the Sidebar, and change other options.
It allows you to easily keep up with various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn…
Check out email analytics and contact ranks. Click on the Files Exchanged tab to search for specific attachments.
Quickly search links exchanged with your contacts. Hover over a link to get a preview of what it entails.
It gives you the ability to index all of your Yahoo mail as well, without the need for purchasing Yahoo Plus!
Then your Yahoo messages appear in the Xobni sidebar. When you select a contact you can see related messages from you Yahoo account.
Easily index all of your mail…including Yahoo mail for better organization and faster search results.
There are several options you can select to change the way Xobni works. From setting up your Yahoo email, Indexing options, and much more.
Additional Features of Xobni Plus
Advanced Search Capabilities – Filter results, Boolean & Phrase Search, Ability to search Appointments & Tasks, Advanced Search Builder
Search unlimited PST data files
Xobni contacts in the compose screen
Find links exchanged with your contacts
View calendar appointments
One year premium tech support
No Ads!
Performance
We ran Xobni Plus on Outlook 2010 32-bit on a Dual-Core AMD Athlon system with 4GB of RAM and found it to run quite smoothly. However, we did notice it would sometimes slow down launching Outlook, especially if other apps are running at the same time.
Product Support
When you buy a license for Xobni Plus you get a full year of premium tech support. They provide a Questions and Answers page on their site where you can run a search query and answers appear instantly.
You can contact support directly as a Plus member through their web form and they advise the turn around time is 2 business days. However, when we tested it, we received a response within 24 hours. They also provide FAQ, Community forum, and you can download the Owners Manual in PDF format from the support page.
Conclusion
Xobni Plus is a very powerful addin for Outlook and includes a lot more features that we didn’t cover in this review. You can download Xobni free edition which includes an 8 day free trial of the Plus version. This provides a good way to start getting familiar with it. Then upgrade to Xobni Plus at any time for $29.95.
Once you get started, you’ll find the sidebar is nicely laid out and intuitive to use. If you live out of Outlook during the day, Xobni Plus is a great addition for fast and powerful searches. It provides an easy way to keep all of your contacts and messages well organized and easy to find.
Xobni Plus works with XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (32 & 64-bit editions) Outlook 2003, 2007 and both 32 & 64-bit editions of Outlook 2010.
Download Xobni Plus
Download Xobni Free Edition
Rating
Installation: 8
Ease of Use: 8
Features: 9
Performance: 8
Product Support: 8
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