You know the score, this tablet you’ve bought – or had lying around for a while now – has two cameras on it, the one on the back you’re likely never to use, at least not in public, right? The front-facing camera however might actually be of some use – as more and more people adopt phones and tablets with these front-facing cameras, the ability to Video Call someone has only gotten easier. In part due to the increasing amount of people out there – many of your friends might have re-upped their contract and gotten a phone with a front-facing camera or a new tablet – and we all know sales of tablets are getting bigger and bigger. So, you want to know how to use this camera with your family and friends – iPhone and iPads included…if you must – well, we’ve got you covered, read on for our Tuesday rundown,
There’s a number of apps that you can use to get video-calling up and running on your tab; let’s have a look at some of them below:-
Tango Video Calling
This app was my go-to app for getting video-calling setup between myself and my girlfriend who has recently gotten an iPhone 4 – gifts from parents, what can you do, eh? – and it works flawlessly. It’d very easy to set up, a nice feature is that it uses your phone number to tie to whatever username you’ll create – thus creating an easy point of reference for other Tango Users, it ties in well with your address book, too, easily finding your friends that are using Tango, too. An issue I had with the app was that as I tried to use it on both my phone and tablet, I’d have to “re-sync” my profile to my tablet after having used it on my phone and vice-versa. Whilst not a deal-breaker, it certainly was annoying. Aside from this Tango does an excellent job of doing exactly what you want it to, it gets video-calling done well, the quality and movement is good – so long as you have a decent connection of course – the app even adds little surprises you can overlay the video, like kisses or balloons. Whilst a little gimmicky it’s certainly a nice little feature to have. Watch the demo video below for more.
Qik
Qik became the app to have in video-calling when it was tied-in heavily with the original EVO 4G. It’s also an odd-ball out of this list as it’s somewhat confusing what Qik app to actually install as there’s a fair myriad of versions of the app out there. Once I did get the bog-standard Wi-Fi-only version of the app up and running I found it to work well and I enjoyed a pleasant experience with it. Again this worked well with my girlfriend’s iPhone and it seemed to be a tad smoother than Tango and seemingly a lot more polished. Watch the video below for more.
Skype
This here is my favourite for a couple of reasons. It’s not just a video-calling app, as I’m sure many of you are aware, it’s an all-rounder for messaging. The video-calling works fine on my Acer A100 Iconia Tab as well as my Nexus S. The ability to be able to stay signed in using my profile on both my tablet and phone is invaluable as well, the notification is unobtrusive and the app didn’t seem to swallow up too much RAM overall. If you’re looking for an all round solution, I’d recommend Skype, after all the chances are the family members you want to chat to already have Skype and if they don’t then it’s exceptionally easy for you to explain how to get it. Skype will also offer you a complete messaging experience to take back to the desktop as well, all this is seamless as well. Take a look at the video below for more info.
Now, you might well be asking why you should embark on video-calling if you haven’t done so before. Well, it’s gotten alot easier thanks to the apps listed above, thanks to dual-core processors it’s also quicker, with 1.2MP and above front-facing cameras becoming standard in tablets quality is fast-increasing as well. I’ll admit that at first I didn’t really get into using my tablet for video-calls however, once I got used to it I loved the flexibility of it. I can talk to my girlfriend when she’s away along with family over in Canada in a way that’s nowhere near as intimate as a simple voice-call. It also makes more sense to involve more than two people in a video-call than it does All those funny faces you pull or simple facial expressions are lacking from voice-calls and as such it’s sometimes difficult to enjoy a good old chat. With video-calling you can take this back and have fun more akin to face-to-face communication.
We’ll be bringing you more from the Tablet areas of Android this time every week. This is only going to get better, folks.