I used SendGrid and it's super simple.  You'll need to sign up with sendgrid and include with composer. Simple use as follows:
    public function sendActivationEmail() {
        $sendgrid = new SendGrid('[username]', '[password]');
        $email = new SendGrid\Email();
        $email->addTo($this->email)
            ->setFrom("[email protected]")
            ->setSubject("Sending emails is super neat.")
            ->setHtml("
                <p>Text is awesome for emails!  Love it.</p>
            ");
        $sendgrid->send($email);
    }
This method is called in the user object in the afterCreate();  [username] and [password] are your username and password w/ SendGrid.
Sendgrid also has support for templates and such, but I didn't take the time to figure them out.