About ten minutes ago, my Gmail account suddenly logged itself out and it took three attempts to log back in successfully. I assumed that Gmail had just gone through another downtime when I suddenly noticed in the corner of the screen “new version”.

Intrigued, I clicked on it and the Gmail account reloaded again. When the inbox appeared on the screen again, nothing seems to have changed. But after clicking around, I’ve realised one thing - Gmail is now lightning fast!

Normally, when switching from label to label or from feature to feature, it would take up to 10 seconds for anything to change (which in email terms is an eternity). But when I tried just now, the screen changed in 1 SECOND. That’s right - ONE SECOND. Suddenly I was zipping between labels so fast that my head was spinning!

Only two snags at the time of writing - the Better Gmail extension from Lifehacker no longer works and the contacts are inaccessible. I am hoping these are just temporary glitches.

Stay tuned for more as I find out about it. I’m going to be monitoring this little baby for another little while to see what other little surprises the new Gmail has in store.

Related posts:

1. Want Gmail contacts in Firefox? Disable “Better Gmail”
2. More on the new Gmail
3. The new Gmail contact list doesn’t work in Firefox!
4. Remember the Milk releases a Gmail to-do list! Sweet!
5. Creating filters in Gmail and organizing your email