Not sure how I missed this one but Microsoft recently enabled POP3 access for users of Hotmail. What this means is that you can now easily check your hotmail on external non-Microsoft e-mail clients and mobile devices without the messy plugins and workarounds.

Here are the settings:

POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)   
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)   
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes

For more details click here.

[Phonescoop]