get chatting (Skype)

Member Name: Murphypig

Product:	Skype
Date:	06/04/08 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: free, keeps you in touch with friends and family

Disadvantages: pc needs to be on to hear someone ringing

As some of you might know, I have family and friends in Germany. I have some family in Poland as well and friends in Newsealand and Canada. You can imagine, that it is not easy to stay in touch when you're so far away, but Skype offers great help to do exactly this.

I heard about it first from my sister. She downloaded it on her PC- for free may I add - and told me to do this as well so we can write to each other and talk to each other for free. I wasn't convinced at the beginning, but after she got my cousin to download it as well, I thought it's worth trying it out.

The different options:
There are different options on the skype.com webside. You can download the simple version, with which you can call other skype members and send them messages (like with ICQ for those of you who know it). You only pay the internet charge, or broadband if you have it.

The second option is Skypeout. With this option you can call people on there normal phonenumber. This will cost you a "global price per minute rate" of currently 1.7 Cent per minute which is about 1.1 pence for the 20 most common countries (Like Newsealand, USA, Norway, Portugal or Russia). You can check the charges on the webside. You can see mobile charges here as well, which are a little bit more. But all really reasonable.
Third option is Skypein. Here you will get a real phonenumber under which you can be called. You'll pay Euro30 for 12 months for this number or Euro10 for 3 months. Included in Skypein is a voicemail service as well. You can choose what country code number you want. My sister for example has this option with an England number, even though she lives in Germany. So I could call her without skype on a national rate and my mum has got cheap rates to England anyway (cause she's calling me ;-)) So if you know loads of people in America for example it's worth getting a number from there, so they can all call you on their national rate...

I'm using the first option, which is free. Because I have a landline anyway, on which I can call out or can get called on. I only use skype at the moment to speak to my sister and cousin (for free). I still have to convince my friends in Canada and Newsealand to do the same and then nobody will be able to get me of the PC anymore! ;-) You can call people, when you know their skype ID and they can call you. You hear that you have a call over your speakers, or you see a missed call, when you don't pick it up. (the computer obviously needs to be on) If I don't want to talk to them or they are not online, (you can see that as well) I just send them a short message, which they will see when they will come back. Last night I spend 1.5h writing messages with my sister while I was doing other stuff on the PC. It's really good fun and does help keeping in touch regulary. My sister will go to America for 5 months and the good thing is, she can just install it there and keep her number, so I still talk to her for free and my mum is still only paying her cheap england rates when she will call her.

What you need:
After you downloaded one of this options, you should go and get yourself a headset. You can use your speakers and only get a mic instead, but I prefer a headset. (gives you a bit of Madonna style!) You can get them in every Computershop starting from £3 or £4.

system requirements are:
PC running Windows 2000 or XP
400 MHz processor
128 MB RAM
15 MB free disk space on your hard drive
Sound Card, speakers and microphone
Internet connection. Any broadband connection or minimum 33.6 Kbps dialup. GPRS is not supported for voice calls. Results may vary on a satellite connection.

I think it's no fun when you have skype on your own, but you can look for skype members on skype and maybe you discover, that you already have friends, that have skype that you didn't knew about...

My verdict is:
You can't go wrong with the first version from skype, because it's free anyway. On the otherones everyone has to decide for themselfes how much they pay for their landline and if it's worth changing. I think it's fun, especially when you have broadband and can leave the internet on for the hole day, so you acctually can hear people ringing you. The webside is very easy to understand and skype is very userfriendly as well. The quality of sound is great, so no reason not to try it!

Summary: just download it and see for yourself. it's for free, so you can't go wrong.

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