Skype releases mobile client
Update: Skype released mobile clients for Android and iPhone, the two dominating mobile operating systems, and Windows 10 Mobile. Downloads are provided on the official Skype website. The information below is not accurate anymore. The article is kept up for archiving purposes. End
Skype for your mobile beta was released by Skype. This is basically Skype that can be installed on a mobile phone. The mobile phones that are currently supported are from Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. Not all mobile phones from these manufacturers are supported though but the download page offers images of the supported mobile phones so it's pretty easy to find out if your phone is currently supported.
Two download options are available. You can either download the Skype for mobile client directly by using your mobile phone or by downloading it to your computer first and transferring it afterwards to the phone. My Nokia N73 is not currently supported but shown as coming soon which means I cannot try the application yet.
You do get access to your Skype contacts which means you see when a contact is online. Chat is supported as well as calling contacts and other phone numbers. This is in the beta limited to the following countries: Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Sweden and UK. Anyone can receive calls however which makes this client useful even if you cannot use it to call others yet.
You pay the normal national or local rate if you want to call Skype contacts and an additional Skype-out fee to your destination. This does only make sense if you make international calls. If you receive calls on your mobile phone with Skype for your mobile installed you pay the Skype-out charge for a mobile call in your country.
Add to those the data rate charges of the phone operator. Skype is giving an example:
A person with 20 contacts, who’s online for 1 hour, IMs for 10 minutes and has a 20 minute call each day will use about 1MB of data per month. The more data you use, the higher your charges may be.
I first thought this was a bit low but then I realized that the phone calls do not seem to use any data.
http://www.fring.com
whay better! Fring + unlimited dataplan or WLAN phone. Sound quality exellent, usage exellent…I’ve been using fring for a year now and it’s very very good.