Voice E-mail is an add on to Maxiworks E-Mail Express (sold with the program). Priced at $32.95 without a microphone, or $49.95 with, there is no doubt that the program delivers what youd want in an email package, but there is a lack of sophistication thats generally expected in todays programs. It comes on two floppy disks - the first is the installation disk, while the second is required to run the program. One helpful feature as a result of this is the messagebox window, which pops up on closing the program reminding you to remove the disk. Another feature required with the programs portability is that all personal information and messages on the floppy are encrypted for added protection.

Installation is easy - when starting the program for the first time, an email accounts wizard leads you through the connection process. You can store up to ten different email accounts as well as set up a signature file.

The main feature is the ability to record and send voice emails. Because of space restrictions, voice messages will only record for 45 seconds. At 45 seconds Voice E-Mail will stop recording abruptly. There is a visual clue as to how many seconds are left. Once the message has been recorded, it is compressed. The second floppy can hold up to 180 text messages and three minutes of voice. E-Mail Express can also back up messages onto a hard drive or selectively download headers only to further conserve space.

Sound clarity is ok. Because you are dealing with voice only, the quality of sound (and thus file size) can be quite low and still perfectly understandable. Uploading and downloading the voice messages is surprisingly quick. 45 seconds is a reasonable length of time for a quick message, but for letter style communication, the text message window is the one to choose.

The program also comes with an address book and a Web browser function - although the latter only opens the default browser with whatever address has been typed in the window. The Web browser window can hold a list of favourite addresses, but creating the list isnt intuitive. One other feature hidden inside the tools window is a Web Favourites Wizard that can search the computer for bookmarks and import them.

The address book stores contacts by groups, which is handy, however there is no drag and drop capability from the address book to an email message. To address an email, you have to click on the lookup button, which opens a different address book window, and choose the recipients - whether or not you have the address book window open already. There is an import wizard for the address book, but contacts must first be in a TXT or CSV file. The reasoning behind the lack of functionality is to allow the program to work on older computers, but the lack of intuitiveness you come up against time and time again is hard to overcome.