Best Instant Messaging Client?
Which instant messaging (IM) client is the best? I have seen this question asked so many times in the forums and being a heavy user of instant messaging on my phone I decided to do a review of all the IM clients that I know. I am only going to review the ones that are free (Sorry IM+) and ones that do not use text messages (Sorry OZ). This review is mostly for AIM, Gtalk and Facebook since those are the ones that I use the most. Here is a list of the ones that are included in this review: Beejive IM, Palringo, Nimbuzz, Talkonaut, Ebuddy and Fring. All IM clients are latest versions as of 8/25/09.
Beejive IM:
From website:
BeejiveIM for Windows Mobile 6 Professional & Standard Edition is in permanent beta. We will not be releasing a production version of BeejiveIM for Windows Mobile 6 and offer the software “as is”.
Pros:
- Beejive probably has the best graphics out of all the clients
- Finger friendly when scrolling through contacts and when scrolling within a chat
- Allows for blocking and unblocking of contacts/buddies
- Can change change/set your status, go invisible, go away or busy.
- Displays buddy icons
- Can change IM sounds and notifications in the windows “Sounds and Notifications settings”
- Can log into all your accounts at once or you can log in to individual accounts.
- Supports emotions
Cons:
- Does not have file sharing or group chats or voice calling
- Not finger friendly when switching between chats
- Also had problems with service outage where their servers went down and it was not fixed for days.
- My keyboard does not work 99% of the time when I have this application open I don’t know why but it seems like a isolated incident. I don’t know anyone else that is having this problem so it just might be my phone. This is the only reason I don’t use the app as much as I would have liked
- Average battery usage
Supports:
AIM, IBM Sametime, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, Windows live/ MSN, MySpace IM, Yahoo
Palringo: The one I use the most!
From website:
Palringo is the ultimate Instant Messaging client for mobile phones and computers.
Now you can chat with all your buddies, no matter what IM they use, all from one universal Instant Messenger.
See where your friends are right now with location and let everyone know where you are.
Create groups so you can send messages to everyone at the same time. Or search the existing groups to find chat rooms you’re interested in and meet new people.
Pros:
- Finger friendly when switching between different chats
- C an set sounds and vibration settings within the app for IM notifications
- Can send voice messages (Records your voice on the phone and then uploads it to a site and sends your buddy a link to voice file so they can listen to it)
- Can send pictures (When you press picture tab camera is started and it lets you take a picture and send that to your buddy)
- Can set individual status for each account or you can set status for all your accounts.
- Allows invisible mode
Cons:
- Have to create a palringo account first
- Not finger friends when scrolling through contacts or within a chat
- Can not tell if a AIM buddy is away, idling, or online through their mobile phone but you can tell for gtalk buddies
- Have to log into accounts individually. No option to login to all of them at once.
- Average battery usage
Supports:
Yahoo, AIM, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, XMPP/Jabber, Facebook, Gtalk, IChat, MSN
Fring:
From Website:
fring™ is a mobile internet community and communication service that allows friends to connect, share experiences and enhance their online communities together.
Using your handset′s internet connection, you can interact with friends on all your favorite social networksAs well as it′s social appeal, fring also lets you make affordable local and international calls to landline and regular cellular numbers using your SkypeOut/SkypeIn account or almost any internet voice service (SIP) such as a1 overIP, PlusNet, Eutelia, Net2Phone and others; even from non-SIP enabled handsets.
Pros:
- Allows for voice chatting between buddies if they both have fring, Skype or Google talk
- Allows Skype out integration which you can use to call your contacts as well since it automatically retrieves your contacts and call history
- Also allows for basic chat functions
- Semi finger friendly
Cons:
- Too slow to start up and setup
- Confusing menus
- Battery hog
Supports:
Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo and AIM
Talkonaut:
From Website:
IM chat
Group chat
Presence and status
Chat history
Avatars
Calling over GPRS, 3G or WIFI
Calling to GTalk, MSN, Yahoo, AIM and iChat
Traffic compression (Zlib)
File sharing
SIP support
GPRS/WIFI auto-switching
Touch screen support
Pros:
- I have nothing to say did not like anything about this software had nothing that the other apps could not do better in my opinion in terms of instant messaging.
Cons:
- To slow to load my buddies and its just confusing to me.
- I just need a IM client that i can chat with all my friends don’t need much more but if the above options interest you then try it out.
Supports:
Jabber, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, AIM and Yahoo
Nimbuzz:
From website:
Nimbuzz Mobile lets you call, chat, message, and send files on the go, for free. It combines all your buddies. One login, one contact list, all accounts. See who´s online and where, call/group-call, chat/chatrooms, offline messaging, send photos/music/video, voice messaging
Pros:
- Send photos just like palringo. (uploads photo that you take with your phone to a site and sends your contact a download link/ viewing link)
- Lets you dial a number using your regular phone through the application. (Don’t know why someone would use this)
Cons:
- Does not show buddies who have IMs forwarded to mobile phones
- Not finger friendly for scrolling contacts
- Battery hog
Supports:
Skype, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, Google Talk
Ebuddy:
Pros:
- Allows me to have group chats on aim. That is the only thing I use it for.
- Easily change your status.
Cons:
- Java based. It is not like a regular app. Don’t really know what the difference is but I just wanted to point it out.
- Does not show if a buddy is away or on their mobile device.
- Have to have an Ebuddy account setup
Download:
Point your mobile browser to m.ebuddy.com and then you will see a download link.
Final Verdict:
I say the best options if you are only looking for chatting and not calling, voice chatting or sending files then Beejive IM should be number one choice. Also I ould recommend that you have Palringo installed and have your account setup just incase because Beejive IM is in permanent beta and I have had problems with their service being out for several days. Also Palringo allows you send voice notes and pictures which is an advantage. If you do a lot of group chats on AIM then I would say have ebuddy installed as well. Those are three that i have on my phone and the ones I use the most is Palringo mainly because of my keyboard problem with Beejive but if I did not have the keyboard problem I would use Beejive a majority of the time.
But let’s hear what you think is the best. Time to shout out.
Loading ...P.S: If I missed any IM clients that you think are good, just leave a comment about it and I will look it up.
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Comments
sid0101 Palringo for me as well. BTW, you can sign into all of your accounts at once. And another advantage is that you can use Palringo for facebook talk and it has your friends pics on the buddy list as well. Overall Palringo is better than Beejive.
teivos you are not the only one having probs with the keyboard and beejive.. i got it too =)
Anudeep I will take a look at slick tonight.
I like the facebook chat in palringo but i have had problems with facebook chat it used to work fine before but lately i have been experiencing some problems.
Good to know i am not the only one with keyboard problems in Beejive. I wonder what the real problem is and why our keyboards stop working.
SDreamer Beejive was alright with me, but scrolling the settings and what not was a bit of a pain. Palringo I’ve had exerpience with on the iPod Touch, did not enjoy, and would just like to stay away from their products. The only client I use is Windows Live Messenger that comes with Windows Live, and I find it works best for my situation, since that’s all I use. I really hate having to sign up for another service just to use the service I want (Palringo and Nimbuzz). Wish Trillian or Pidgin would have some similar app on Windows Mobile, maybe when Marketplace comes I’ll be in luck.
Anudeep yeah i dont use msn/ windows live messenger so i never tried the wmessenger that comes with the phone even if i did use msn i would want a program that can handle more clients. sd dreamer what did you not like about palringo?
also scrolling settings on beejive is a problem but once u have it set you dont have to go back to it that is why i did not point it out
DJManoloco I was a fan of Palringo when I first discovered it, especially since you could chat in everything from MSN to Google and Facebook. But then I started having problems with typing where I would type entire sentences and not see one symbol on the screen. Eventually a word like “cool” would appear as ccccccccccccccccccccccooll. I haven’t check to see if there is an upgrade, so I’m not sure if I have an outdated version. Then I got into Fring because of the Voip and the multichats. Voip at times can be very buggy and Fring isn’t very pleasant on the eyes. Now I’m a fan of Nimbuzz. Clear Voip calls, icons for my facebook, msn, yahoo, and AIM contacts. Very nice interface. User friendly. I still keep Palringo and Fring around, but I’m really pleased with Nimbuzz.
John Kitsmiller I use Palringo and love it. You can log into all your accounts at once. When you create your Palringo account and associate all your IM accounts, just log into your Palringo account and it logs you into all your IM accounts at once.
Anudeep Hmmm i will have to try that but i still like Beejive when it comes to logging into all your accounts because i can choose when i want to log into all my accounts and when i dont want to and from what you are telling my dont know if i can do that with palringo. Correct me if i am wrong though.
sid0101 Anudeep, you are wrong – 
.
With palringo, once all of your accounts are associated with your palringo account it automatically signs you in. If you don’t want to be signed into a particular account its a simple double click on the service on Palringo’s main menu.
Anudeep Hmm i will try it again for some reason when i double click on the main thing it just logs into the palringo service and any service that i did not log out of last time. Then i have to individually go and double click each account that i want logged in.
Dave I have only used Palringo. I like it because it has Gtalk and Facebook. The only thing I would like (they say they are working on it) is the ability to make the font size bigger..
Sometimes I really have to squint to read a message.
Anudeep Just so you guys know Palringo Developer , Ross, chimed in over at mobilitydigest and here is what he said:
Responding as a Palringo Developer to some of the cons listed for the application:
* We hope to make the interface more finger friendly in the next Windows Mobile release.
* We hadn’t been aware that the AIM buddy status was not working, so I have reported this to our server team and no doubt it will be fixed shortly. It’s probably due to a small protocol change in the AIM network.
* We will aim to give the bottom status bar the functionality that allows all accounts to be set to the same state. The next version will also remember previous online states for bridged accounts.
Thanks for the exposure, if anyone has any further criticisms then please let us know on our forum so we can continue to try and improve the application.
Jaymoon Palringo for free and easy.
But since I bought IM+, how can I not give that my vote.
DanTe Palringo for me please!
Very usable (on IPhone, Symbian, WinMo and Win desktop – tried them all btw). Java is not far behind and I hear that once sorted out, it will give fairly good access to IM platforms for millions of old, low spec handsets, which would mean that non-geeky and non gadgety friends and family could stay in touch too.
I use Slick, fast and light.