We recently had the chance to talk to Kelly, a university student studying IT. During the interview, she discussed how she uses AirSend’s features to stay organized for school. She also compared us to OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and Notion and weighed the pros and cons of each app.
Here’s a transcript of our conversation (edited for clarity):
ME: How did you come across AirSend, and are you currently using it?
KELLY: I am one of the early users of AirSend that joined sometime in 2020 when the platform was starting to take off. If I am not mistaken, I think you guys posted about it on Reddit, which is how I have come to know about the platform. Back then, I did not know the need for the platform as I had never been introduced to something like it. It did take a while to find how to make the platform work for me.
I currently use AirSend to better organize myself for task planning (such as keeping track of what I need to do, assignments I need to complete, etc.). I also use it for keeping track of articles, blogs, and resources that interest me. AirSend allows me to organize these resources better and sync them across my devices. For example, I am an IT student and go through a lot of notes and resources on various topics. With AirSend, I can categorize each topic and store relevant notes in each channel to make it a lot easier to find stuff I am looking for and to stay organized.
Lastly, the integration with Office is a valuable feature for me. I use OneDrive as my university provides it, but once I am no longer a student, I would switch full time to using the integration with AirSend to replace the need to have an Office 365 subscription. If I had known about AirSend before starting with OneDrive, I would probably have used AirSend’s integration from the beginning instead of OneDrive as AirSend syncs across devices in a convenient app far less intrusive and ‘heavy’ on resources compared to OneDrive. Furthermore, the file management would have been far better on AirSend compared to OneDrive.
That being said, I would describe myself as someone who uses the platform primarily for its file management and organization features rather than all the business features or collaboration features it offers.
ME: If yes, what made you choose to use AirSend over other apps such as Microsoft Teams, Discord, or Notion? If not, what made you decide to stop using it?
KELLY: My university uses MS Teams for assignment submissions, online lectures, and communication with lecturers, so MS Teams is a platform I have to use. Apart from this, I do not use MS Teams much as it is not a good app.
Discord is a platform that is popular amongst my peers due to online gaming. Since they are familiar with the Discord platform, I often use it as a tool to collaborate and do group work. Discord live streaming features, familiarity, and ease of use are also reasons my peers are reluctant to switch to a different platform. That being said, Discord’s limits and monthly costs are not cheap. The free plan has limitations regarding the number of characters allowed in a message, file upload size (5 or 8Mb, I believe), and a stream quality restriction (everyone on the server needs a Nitro subscription to stream their screens in 1080p). With all these limits in place, my peers still prefer Discord over every other platform due to familiarity and ease of use.
Notion’s platform is one I do use somewhat often. I use Notion due to its powerful tools such as the Table View Database (https://www.notion.so/guides/table-view-databases) and relevant templates that are easy to use work with. Furthermore, Notion allows me to make my page online and accessible via a URL link that I can share publicly. This feature I like as I can design a wiki or a thread about interesting articles I have found and add it to my Notion page, and users can view it online via the URL. It is almost like having a small blog. That being said, Notion does have quite the learning curve and took me a while to get used to it.
My use for AirSend differs from the platforms above. I find AirSend to be a convenient, easy-to-use platform that works fast enough on my devices to make it convenient for me to open up and save things quickly without using up much time or having to wait. AirSend also offers me what the other platforms lack: easy file management, task creation, and Office 365 integration (currently not in use, but it is a feature I will use once my OneDrive subscription ends).
ME: What are your favorite parts of AirSend?
KELLY: My favorite aspect of AirSend would most definitely be its excellent file management capabilities. It offers easy organization and planning features and integration. The collaboration features would have been perfect if my peers also joined the platform as it would replace the need for having WhatsApp Groups, Discord Groups, and Microsoft Teams groups. Having so many groups makes it harder to keep track of things as you have to search on multiple platforms to find that ‘one’ message you are looking for. Additionally, file storage and retrieval are far more convenient than other platforms since on Discord; we end up having to use File Hosters such as WeTransfer, which scrap the files after seven days, or having to use GDrive, which again has a 15GB limit which is decent but not quite good enough if the user uploading the file already used up the majority of space for their personal stuff.
AirSend is a versatile digital workspace for students to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you succeed at school here.