iPhone owners with a rolodex of Skype subscribers may want to stick to that video-chat service, and when it comes to face-to-face calls with buddies on Android phones, we suggest Fring or Tango. Overall, ooVoo's picture quality was not as good as the competition. By comparison, Skype minutes start at about $0.02/minute, and Fring offers prices that start at less than $0.01/minute. Without a plan, calls to domestic and international numbers start at about $0.02 per minute. Also, both paid plans allow users to conduct video calls with up to six people using the desktop app. The $29.95 per month ooVoo Pro plan includes 500 minutes a month, desktop screen sharing, 25MB file transfers and live tech support. The $9.95-per-month ooVoo Plus plan includes 200 phone minutes per month, capacity to send 20MB files, and e-mail support. Video quality was surprisingly strong, even when we cycled between different video feeds. During our mobile device tests, we launched four simultaneous calls over Wi-Fi. During those multi-party calls, each user can select one video from any of the other five callers, and they can switch between the videos at any time. However, none of these features are available in the smartphone apps.Ī neat feature allows six mobile users to share a video call simultaneously, but they can only stream one video feed from any other caller at a time. Other tools include the ability to record and send 1-minute video messages and send your friends URLs that connect to an established video chat room. The free desktop version of ooVoo includes audio and video calls with up to three people, file sharing, desktop sharing, free online video chat hosting, and group and individual IM/chat. Video during those calls was sharper and cleaner than the blurriness we noticed in ooVoo. In general, Skype offered better video quality when using the iPhone 4's 3G connection, and Google Chat and Fring performed better over 4G. The iPhone 4 didn't perform as well over Wi-Fi it occasionally showed a jumbled mix of large-sized pixels during otherwise decent calls. Over 3G and 4G, the Epic 4G's video was barely visible. Even when we panned the phone around a room, images remained smooth. When making calls over Wi-Fi, quality on both phones improved, although there were moments of intense distortion.Īs with phone-to-phone video chats, calls made from a phone to the ooVoo client on a desktop computer worked best over Wi-Fi, with the Epic 4G performing the best. Video from the iPhone was dark and blotchy, and pixel noise was slow to disappear. Using an iPhone on Verizon's 3G network and the Epic 4G on WiMAX, image quality was not great. When making a call over two phones connected to Sprint's 4G network, details such as our plaid shirt pattern were blurry, but colors were accurate and the video connection was steady. We tested ooVoo Mobile on the iPhone 4, an HTC Evo 4G, and a Samsung Epic 4G, making calls between two phones and to a Toshiba Tecra R840 notebook over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. Though the desktop client works with three video callers at a time, the mobile app supports six video users at once. Similar to Skype, ooVoo includes sections for voice calls, text chat, contact management (including group lists), call history, pre-paid landline calls and video chat. Click to enlargeooVoo's Android and iOS applications are much better-looking than their drab desktop counterpart, namely because they use an orange, white, and black color scheme instead of a boring spread of grays and black.
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