Fring for Windows Mobile Review

Fring is a mobile internet service & community that enables you to access & interact with your social networks on-the-go, make free calls and live chat with all your fring, Skype®, MSN® Messenger, Google Talk™, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo!™ and AIM®* friends using your handset’s internet connection.

Fring for Windows Mobile Review

Installation

fring(yes, the first letter is small) takes around 1.8MB on your windows mobile device. The application can be installed via a CAB file or by an EXE. CAB file must be executed on your device directly, while the EXE is meant to be run on the desktop. The installation went fine with no problems at all.

Fring for Windows Mobile Review

Launching the application for the time

If you are launching the application for the first tim, then it will ask you if you would like to activate the today-plugin. The today-plugin is quite basic in nature. It only tells you the status of fring, if it is connected or not. It also shows you the number of missed calls

Here are some screenshots of the today plugin:

Working

The fring is pretty easy to use. I logged-in into many of the services. Also, in this new version, it introduces the use of Widgets, which are actually small internet applications. Unlike other widgets-related applications of Windows Mobile, the widgets are embedded into the fring application. fring supports:

Skype
MSN Messenger
Facebook
Gmail Notifier
Orkut
ICQ
Twitter
SIP
Google Talk
Yahoo
AIM
Yandex.mail

This new fring also support skype-out calls. While you don’t need this since there is already a version of Skype for windows mobile out there, but the support for Skype is appreciated nonetheless.

The best feature of the fring is it’s ability to use the inbuilt earpiece instead of the speaker. This is something even the Skype for Windows Mobile does not provides. This lets you keep your conversations private. This does not mean you cannot use the speaker. You can toggle between earpiece and microphone at any time during the call. The chat feature works well in all the services. The smileys do not work though.

Widgets of Social-sites like Facebook, Orkut etc worked fine in displaying the basic information like how many friends, messages, photos etc you have. If you click on messages, it would launch IE mobile and load the mobile version of the facebook. In short, the widgets provide limited usefulness and just give you an overview of your profile. Some of the things just didn’t work though. I could not update my status at all in any of the social-website related widgets. Also, if I clicked on the photos, I should get a list of my pictures that I’ve uploaded, but it refused to open my picture folders after repeated attempts. If someone has been able to get these working, let me know.

Gmail notifier launches IE mobile inside fring.

Final Verdict

It is a complete application for those who want to stay connected to their friends irrespective of the Instant Messenger they are using. Also, it’s ability to use the built-in earpiece for VOIP calls is a big plus as it helps to maintain privacy. Widgets only show an overview and uses IE mobile for most of the operations.

Get the fring from the following link:

http://www.fring.com/download/

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