Mobile IM is the number four cellphone killer app — the other three are, in order, voice, SMS, and Snake — but, surprisingly, it’s the hardest to use. Of all the IM programs I’ve tried, only Danger has managed to make it seamless as possible. Mundu, a new product from Indian developers Geodesic is coming in a close second.
The product supports AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber. The UI is fairly clean and during the course of my testing the “lag” I’ve experienced with other mobile IM clients — the lag is most visible when you a message come on the desktop IM client and then it appears a few minutes later on the cellphone — was fairly minor with only about a minute between messages.
I tested the WinMo version of Mundu but it also runs on Palm OS. Geodesic expects to launch a Symbian Series 60 version soon. Now, for the good part. Most IM clients charge monthly or bi-monthly, a costly proposition. Mundu costs $11 with no per message fee. We’ll write that again. $11.
Is it better than the default IM clients that might come with your phone? If you’re using a Sidekick, no. But if you’re using something like OZ, you might have a better experience with Mundu — there’s a 5 day free trial, so you might as well give it a go — and it’s definitely better, and cheaper, than other clients I’ve tried.
Version 4 also includes media sharing as well as in-line file sharing for adding a bit of flash to your chats. This includes video and image exchange as well as file and music sharing. Finally, it also includes email notifications for Yahoo, MSN, and Google, if that’s your thing. Generally, this is an impressive — if under-represented — IM client and is worth a quick look.
Comments
Isn’t Trillian going to release a mobile version soon?
thats what i heard, but i haven’t seen anything yet. the problem is that these clients actually need a “repeater” server somewhere to push the IM conversations.
John,
Mundu IM connects directly to the respective IM servers,unlike most other IM products on mobile phones which have a server side proxy approach to IM(and hence the need for something like a repeater server).
This client side approach ensures that there is no significant delay in transferring messages and in implementation of advanced features such as buddy profile picture viewing,email notification..etc
Venkat
Geodesic
i use http://www.create-ringtone.com to create and send FREE custom ringtones, wallpaper, mp3 and video files to cell phones around the world
Have you tried Fring. I have it on my cell phone, and haven’t had any problem with it on my Nokia E90 besides the switching between horizontal plane and vertical plane with the flip open keypad.
It only supports, gtalk, msn and skype, but that’s perfect for me, as that more than I need.
oops, sorry I mean nokia E70 not E90. Also another point on fring is that it’s free.
Might want to try IM+, it runs on low-end mobiles too.
http://www.shapeservices.com/en/products/details.php?product=im
I am using Fring on my N80 (with Skype and Googletalk) and the lag is only a few seconds.
By far the best IM client I have tried.
You guys should try out YehBA* Mobile IM. So far it’s one of the top Mobile Instant Messengers around.
It has both Java & Symbian versions.
http://www.yehba.com
Check out http://www.koolim.com
Im using Agile messenger, so far it works for Yahoo and MSN, I’m using the beta version for MotoL6 so I havent tried the stable version.
About the repeater issue, my provider has been blocking ports aside from HTTP (if your not a partner service provider). Therefore most mobile IM uses polling method which allows the client to connect in asynchronous mode via HTTP.
Another interesting developement is that Telcos are cutting down services that offers IM to SMS while mobile IM’s GPRS rates has been increased; this decision were recommended by the Revenue Assurance department after finding out that Telcos has been losing revenue in International SMS because of IM to SMS and mobile IM service.
Another to check out is http://www.movamessenger.com
Leave Comment
Commenting Options
Create an avatar that will appear whenever you leave a comment on a Gravatar-enabled blog.