Windows Live Mail, or Plusnet webmail...?

[#1]

I am about to upgrade from an old pc (XP + Outlook Express) to a new one (W8.1), and am trying to choose between using Windows Live Mail, and going over to Plusnet webmail.  Weighing them up:
WLMail:
-  easier initial transfer across of address book & previous emails from OE?
-  easier backing-up of emails
-  more flexible message formatting (fonts etc)
-  Inbox displays downloads from all mailboxes/addresses
-  can still read previous emails & write new ones when the internet is down
webmail:
-  can access address book & previous emails from any pc
-  backing-up of emails shouldn't be necessary
-  BUT can't access more than one mailbox at a time (except in different browsers)
-  and would lose address book & previous emails if I were to leave Plusnet?
Am I right about the first & last points?  Anything else I should be considering?
Thanks,
Peter

[#2]

Why not set up Windows Live Mail to use IMAP rather than POP3 (I assume it supports IMAP), then you can do both WLM and Webmail?

[#3]

Er ... struggling a bit here (not having had to do much setting up of email for about ten years) -- even after having looked up the meanings of IMAP & POP3.
Are you suggesting setting up so that incoming messages are stored in webmail as well as being automatically downloaded to WLM on the pc?  Will outgoing messages similarly be double-stored (unless I happen to be sending them from webmail, I guess)?
Could I even automatically back up my address book too ... surely not!
I can't see how draft messages could be backed up either (I use these as an easy way of assembling & saving long mailing-lists).
Anyway, where exactly do I make the selection between IMAP & POP3?  And would it all be as simple to manage as either WLM or webmail on their own?

[#4]

Webmail already accesses emails using IMAP, no need to make any changes to that. What I'm suggesting is that you also use IMAP to access emails in the email client on your new PC. Then you can use webmail (for example if away from home) or the email client (at home) with both applications able to view messages whether they have previously been accessed by your PC email client or not. If the latter used POP3 the messages would be downloaded from the server and no longer accessible from webmail.
When setting up the mail account on your PC you will be given the choice of POP3 or IMAP access - just choose IMAP.
IMAP is used only for reading incoming messages, SMTP is used for sending. The Plusnet Email Setup Guides here will guide you through setting up your email client. I'm not sure where this setting is since I don't use Windows Live Mail, but I believe there is an option to use either local folders or server folders for storing Drafts, Sent messages or Trash. If you select server folders you will be able to work interchangeably on webmail or your PC email client when sending messages.

[#5]

I personally use Thunderbird and Google webmail, paralleled using IMAP as above.
I have used Windows Mail in the past (or rather its Outlook Express predecessor) and had a marginal preference to Thunderbird at the time for reasons I can't remember.  I suspect Thunderbird and Windows Mail are still more striking for their similarities than their differences.
It is well worth using mail other than your ISP's as your main mail; it makes life much easier if you ever want to change ISP.
If you have Windows Mail or Thunderbird it is easy to manage multiple accounts from a single client.

[#6]

use both, set up a forwarding rule in plusnet's mail so everything gets auto forwarded to your livemail account,
on the desktop app you can individually setup each mail account and have as many different ones as you like, similarly you can do the same with the mail app's on smartphones the built in metro mail function only works on the outlook.com mail account which you setup the pc with unless you have the pro version of windows 8.1 (in which case there are additional features)
but your better off having more than one mail provider service, just remember with livemail unless its accessed regularly they close the account (unless you have it as part of a paid for account service bundled with office 365 etc)

[#7]

Use Windows Live Mail (WLM)  to access PlusNet email via IMAP (for incoming) and PlusNet SMTP (for outgoing).
Use a Microsoft outlook.com (formerly Hotmail) to store contacts and calendar (ignore the email side) and tell WLM to share contacts and calendars with it (log on to the outlook.com account in the top RH corner of the WLM screen).
You then get the best of all worlds: IMAP allows you to share Inbox and Sent box (and any subfolders for both), and outlook.com links to WLM calendars and contacts using EAS (a slight variant of the synching protocol used by Microsoft Exchange server and the best synching protocol extant). Windows and all smartphones and tablets support IMAP and EAS.
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