Fring is designed to turn your mobile phone into a VOIP-enabled handset that managed contacts based on your IM contacts. At it’s core, it provides a full free windows mobile im client. Then they used this framework to allow contact management and VOIP or SIP functionality.
Overall their interface is smooth and they manage the various IM protocols better than just about anything that I’ve seen. They also manage the data connection on my Pocket PC very well. However there are two problems that would prevent me from using Fring extensively.
- The VOIP functionality uses my phone’s main speaker rather than the phone speaker.
- Fring’s contact management seems better suited for the almost-there VOIP function than pure IM.
These two factors mean that while Fring is slick and has a great vision for crossing mobile IM and VOIP, the Beta is not quite ready for a permanent spot on my phone. I’m still very bullish on the client long term and hope to hear about the speaker issue being resolved.
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Hi Dave,
Gil from fring here. Thanks for your kind review, it’s always great to hear from a new fringster!
As for the speaker phone issue- fringers are continually working hard to resolve issues, and to address suggestions given to us by users. I’m not sure if you are aware of that, but this weekend we actuaully launched a new version, the first ever WM mVoIP application that enables you to use both the speakerphone and the ear piece for mVoIP calls. So far it’s only supported by a few Toshiba handsets, but support for more devices is in the works. For more info: http://www.fring.com/blog/?p=188 .
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