I enjoy the custom experience Zorin provides, but my main gripe is the obsolescence of some core parts like mail and calendar.
I'm ok with Evolution choice; it integrates with system accounts (take that Thunderbird) and is quick, but 3.44 is several years old. 3.56 was released just two months ago. It looks very very outdated and trying to install more current version, not available in Zorin repos, did not went well. I understand there's a balance act between this grade of customization and keeping core system stable so that nothing brakes, but this is by far the main drawback and needs attention. Please, take the resources needed to tackle it!
Thank you so much.
You can install the flatpak version of evolution. It is newer. You can install it via the software manager. Before doing this remove your installed version.
Tl;dr: It looks to me like updating Evolution could be like playing Jenga here.
My guess would be that there's a dependency issue in the way. Since Zorin's based on Ubuntu 22.04, it has a variety of older components that make certain updates impossible. I kind of suspect that's the issue here. Zorin uses GNOME 43, which is older. Checking dependencies with Aptitude:
zorin-os-desktop depends on gnome-shell
gnome shell depends on libedataserver-1.2-26
libedataserver-1.2-26 depends on evolution-data-server-common.
Also, gnome-shell recommends evolution-data-server (without the "common"). I've uninstalled Evolution as a client and still have both data server packages because the DE and Zorin's additions want it. If the newer version of Evolution removed anything they were using, or changed it fundamentally enough to require changing the version of GNOME, it could be an overhaul that would have to wait for Zorin OS 18 and a rebase to a newer version of Ubuntu.
I went through this when I got my new computer in 2021. Back then it was OS 15, and that was too old to use the modern hardware, and I'd have issues if I had installed it. I waited till OS 16 came out before I installed Zorin OS on the machine I'm on now.
Zorin OS is typically behind the other distributions like POP OS, in order to maintain long term stability, with LTS releases. Other's often go for rolling releases which happen more often, but often invite stability issues to do so.
On Q4OS it is using 3.46.4-2. The thing about Evolution is that it can handle Enterprise accounts such as Outlook365. I am more than happy to use Evolution over any other mail client. But like everything else, it's horses for courses. Zorin has no control over Evolution - there is only one Developer (not with Zorin) who maintains it.