The SPA gmail platform has an _infuriatingly long_ loading screen, but once loaded the click-> to reading email _is_ quicker.
I suspect there is allot that can (and should) be done to optimize the SPA version.
But man, the html version is speedy.
I barely use email, but I'm going to put the html-only version into my rotation and see which one I gravitate toward.
It's certainly possible to have a server rendered app that uses JS sparingly for interactive behavior, but it blows away a lot of the benefits once you're doing significant DOM-manipulation.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_att...
Good luck implementing 10% of the keyboard shortcuts gmail uses: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6594?co=GENIE.Platfor...
I did this a while back, and the only real issue I've had with it is that there doesn't seem to be an equivalent to the "Check mail now" action for imported email accounts. (The 'refresh' link annoyingly does not trigger this action.)
>Offline unavailable.
>The browser you are using is missing some features required to enable offline. To enable offline, you must use Chrome with version 61 or higher.
It's super fast. Almost absurdly so, compared to the "full" gmail experience. Added bonus: It gets out of the damn way so you can just do what you came there to do: write and read email.