NimBuzz:All in One Messenger for Mobile

Jul 5, 2010 by Ajeet Khurana

A superb all-in-one messenger, combining chat with social networking

With smartphones in India being increasingly connected to EDGE and GPRS via unlimited data packages, the use of always-on instant messengers (IM) on phones has gone up.

One of the most popular software for handset-based IMs has been Nimbuzz; with GetJar.com recently reporting that it has served out 10 million downloads of the application so far.

At its core, Nimbuzz is an all-in-one messenger, combining various popular instant messaging and social networking services into one software for easy access. Through this application, users can log in to their Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, AIM and even MySpace and Facebook accounts.

Once you install the program — a pretty hefty piece, clocking in over 2MB — it prompts you to sign in to your different accounts as well as the default Nimbuzz account you are obliged to create.

An eye-pleasing interface greets you with The Buddy List — a single pane that combines the contacts from all the services you have signed in to. Next to each buddy’s name sits the logo of the service he or she is accessing and their online/offline status, providing a better clue for you as to what’s happening. Special note should be made of the addition of Facebook and MySpace contacts for quick chatting — an incredibly useful feature.

You can sort the Buddy List by favourites, such that the people you talk to most often show up at the top of the list. Quite handy, that!

The self-explanatory Chats tab has all the ongoing conversations as all as new incoming messages. And we tend to express ourselves quite a bit while chatting, so the addition of emoticons brought a smiley to our face. Forgive the pun, please.

The program also supports offline messaging, but really, wouldn’t you rather just send an SMS? Still, for those who would like to save the 50 paise, you can ‘Buzz’ a friend on any of the services.

One of the best parts about NimBuzz is that it allows for voice chats. That’s right, you can actually talk to someone over the phone for free, while they’re on a PC — provided they’re online at the same time as you are! Still, on GPRS and EDGE connections, this makes for quite a lousy experience as the voice delay is too high. But if you do happen to be in a Wi-Fi hotspot, yap away without a care in the world.

Data transfers are another aspect of Nimbuzz that make you sit up and take notice. Who needs MMS and email attachments when you can just send a file across to a friend so easily! From personal experience, we can vouch that this is especially helpful when it comes to sharing a quick photograph.

Still, at the end of the day, it’s an out-and-out instant messaging device and does that job very well indeed.

There are other applications that give it strong competition, such as Fring, Mundu IM, IM+ and eBuddy; but without a second thought, we’d recommend Nimbuzz for sheer ease and accessibility. Given that it’s compatible with such a large gamut of cell phones, a change in your handset will still bring you to a familiar environment very quickly.

Platforms: Symbian S60, Java, Windows Mobile, iPhone OS

Price: Free

Download: www.nimbuzz.com