@ About, Speed, Using Skype @

When i first got Skype, i used it to call friends who lived abroad. Now i use it for practically everything to do with video calls. There is however, one big problem for me, and for anyone who wants to use this for work purposes: you cant record audio or video files. You need to download a separate hyper cam from the web in order to do this, so you will never be able to re watch your meeting with just Skype. The good thing though, is that Skype to Skype calls over the internet are completely free of charge and simple to use.

Skype will load very fast when you click on it, and will also search for background calls while you run your computer, so if you are typing a document and don't have Skype on it will still come up as an incoming call. This will use a lot of CPU power on much older computers with less ram but luckily you can turn this feature off in the preferences menu.

Skype is completely customisable to suit your performance and PC speeds, and internet speeds by lowering the video and audio quality of the program. In my experience, the lowest quality picture is barely visible, so Skype is really for those who use faster PCs.

@ Service, Help, Ease of use, Reliability @

When you first load Skype you get a really high quality test call which you can ring free of charge and test the sound quality with. Skype has a very well laid out system where almost everything has icons. These are simple icons and easy to understand e.g to end a call you press the phone down button.

In my experience Skype has been a very stable and reliable piece of software because whilst i have never had a call go down, i have never had the program crash either. Signing in takes seconds and you can set up a profile within minutes. You don't have to display any information if you don't want to, and where privacy is concerned i have found it to be very secure. No one can call me unless they are a contact. So no strangers.

The help menus on Skype are easy to use and if you get lost you can visit the Skype website which has lots of useful help pages. Although because their menus are easy to navigate i have never had to use these help pages. There is no computer jargon until you enter the advanced set up menus which can become quite confusing.

@ Overall @

Skype is a brilliant internet communication tool, and perfect for personal use. For business use however, if you need to record your meeting and refer to notes later on then i recommend getting a hyper cam to record with, its the one feature i wish the software had built in.