After secretly working on the project for years, Google launched the beta for its invite-only iOS and Android app Google Inbox this week. It has quickly become the most buzzed-about item to hit the web since its big reveal on Wednesday, and as of yesterday Google superfans without invites have already begun trying other means to get their hands on it. The popular online auction site eBay hosted the first sale of the exclusive Inbox invite, which sold for over $200 after only one day of bidding. Yes, you read that correctly – someone paid over $200 simply to be able to try the new email service. So is it worth it?

The Gmail team has spent the last two years developing the Inbox platform which is designed around Google Now principles and lends its inspiration to the Mailbox design as well as to the notion of “Inbox Zero”. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “Inbox Zero” refers to an approach to email that aims to keep a user’s inbox empty- or as empty as it can be. Google has attacked this notion specifically with these features: Bundles, Highlights, Reminders and Sweep, Assists, Snooze and Pin. While some of the concepts are by no means new, and for the most part self-explanatory, it is in the way that they work together and with the user that makes Google Inbox so special.

The process of setting filters and sorting emails, which usually saves you time in the long run, is a daunting process to find the time initially to establish. The Bundles feature helps with this by automatically bundling similar types of email all at once. For example, all emails pertaining to your bank can be grouped together, viewed at once, and swiped away as a group. For those of you with issues letting go of control, you can also choose which emails you’d like to see grouped together in the future and the service will adapt accordingly. The Highlights feature works similarly to the way that Google Now does, showing card-like notifications which will display attachments, photos, important bits of information from the message, etc. Perhaps the coolest way we’ve seen this used is in travel info – when you tap on the card related to your travel plans, your flight info, pertinent emails from your airline and even boarding-pass barcodes become instantly available. Reminders, Sweep and Snooze are fairly self-explanatory features of the service; reminders can be added from scratch as well as from Google Now, sweeping right on messages and items will send them to your Done folder and keep clutter off your main screen, and Snooze lets you postpone items you want to get back to later.

Two of the coolest features we’ve discovered in exploring Inbox are the Assists and Pin functions. The Assists feature takes a small bit of information and strives to provide any other bits of information you may need based on that note. Say for example you’ve made a note to call Dell’s customer service line later to ask a question about your computer, or you want to swing by a laptop repair shop after work. Assists will supply Dell’s customer service line so that you can call them directly from your inbox, and will provide you with the address, phone number and hours of operation to your desired repair shop. My personal favorite aspect of Google Inbox, being the bona fide basket case that I am, is the Pin feature. “Put a pin in it” is one of my favorite phrases to throw around at work and in this case, Google Inbox lets you do just that; put a pin in any messages that are important or that you may want to revisit in the near future. To see all messages that you have currently pinned, simply tap the pin toggle and all other unpinned emails will disappear. While the service remains invite-only for now, you can reach out to Google at inbox@google.com to request an invite of your own.