VoIP/Audio Chat -- MSN vs AIM vs Skype

Kuo

Gawd
Joined
Jun 7, 2001
Messages
641
Hey all,

Just trying to figure out what my best mode of communication would be.

I have a friend overseas that I want to talk to, and we're both looking into ways we can talk free. I know off hand that both MSN Messenger and AIM support audio chat options, while Skype is more of a specified VoIP type application.

What's the pros/cons of each one? I'm looking for something that is real-time and has moderate b/w usage (max of 60 kb/sec down, 14 kb/sec up). Audio quality is nice, but can be sacrificed to maintain real time communications.

I know a veyr long time ago (4 yrs), I used some VoIP type thing, but the lag on it was tremendous (I would say something, and it would take 10 secs for the other end to hear).
 
I would highly reccomend that you use Skype.

I have started using it recently and I am very impressed with the quality and ease of use (even for computer novices).

Also to address your concerns about bandwidth usage and latency:

I just looked and bandwidth usage appears to be no more than 6kb/s or so up/down which is not too bad in my oppinion but does require broadband.

Latency is quite low, maybe a second or so but if you wear headphones on both ends you won't notice it and it'll seem almost like they are in the same room. The sound quality is higher than if you were to talk on the phone in my oppinion.

The main con of using the MSN voice chat is that sometimes it just doesn't work, sometimes it doesn't work at all given certain network configurations and when it does work it'll fade in and out at times.

Personally i've never used AOL's voice chat features but I don't care at all for the AOL client.


Keep in mind that Skype also has text IM capabilities as well (although it doesn't have all of those useless features like buzz, shake, whatever) but it has the most important stuff in my oppinion without the bloat. It's got some basic emoticons, font selection and the ability to transfer files (which can be 2 or 4 GB depending on your file system according to the Skype website). Also the file transfer works dependably unlike what i've seen with MSNs file transfer.

Go Skype.
 
Another vote for Skype. Used for VOIP it's a much better alternative than AIM or MSN.
 
Back
Top