Mobile me is kinda useless
To synch Contacts and Calendar ? Use gmail, if you set it as Exchange on Ipad and Iphone it's instant change
Mail well gmail is better also
For cloud? Dropbox ftw 2gig for free and if you get friends to invite you can go up to 8-9gig total free
Only use of mobile me is find my ipad
If it becomes free, i'll consider it
I have dropbox and MobileMe. Though free, Dropbox is less intuitive to use and takes much longer to do simple tasks, such as backing up photos, so Dropbox ends up being used only for storage purposes, whereas I use MobileMe on a regular basis nearly every day because of it's superior interface and simplicity.
Not sure why anyone would find it useless. It backs up and syncs over the air your data in intervals, automatically, or on demand between your macs/pc's, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and SD card enabled digital cameras. It allows 24/7 access to your data on any internet connected computer of course, and the file size limits are huge: 20GB in the cloud to start, with 200GB file transfer per month.
Other benefits include the option to bypass the need to sync via iTunes, which many of us can appreciate, and seamless integration between apple products, like being able to stream your pics and videos to Apple TV even if there is no computer or iOS device in the house.
As far as which email is better, that is of personal opinion I suppose. I have both gmail and .me mail. When it comes to organizing my incoming mail into folders, I personally prefer MobileMe's drag and drop. Since MobileMe's calendar syncs with iCal, google calendars, outlook, ect, it is my calendar of choice by far.
And then you've got the simplicity of MobileMe's iDisk syncing with my files in Dropbox via webDAV.. Best of both worlds I tell ya. Transferring word/page documents, excel/numbers, and PowerPoint/Keynote between iPad, Mac, and PC is a cinch. MobileMe + Dropbox + WebDAV is simply awesome.
If you couldn't tell by now, I really love my MobileMe account and find the subscription fee to be minimal compared to all the things it does to make all the things I normally do more convenient.