Want something for nothing? Of course you do! Who doesn’t. Well, you are in luck as Google seems to be offering a few little freebies recently. If you missed it then yesterday Google were offering Sandra Bullock’s new(ish) movie ‘Gravity’ for free on Play. There were some caveats though. You needed to have the Google Play Movies & TV App downloaded and you kinda needed to be running a Nexus 5. Yes, it seems only the Nexus 5’s were getting the deal. I said ‘kinda’ because some (very rare) reports were noting it was also available on the Samsung S5. Either way, the deal may still be on so if you own a Nexus 5 then hop skip to the Play Movies & TV app and grab your freebie.
Now today it seems there is another little freebie available to you and especially if you use Google’s Hangouts…and even more especially if you call abroad. According to Google’s Hangouts help page for the rest of 2014 the first minute of any overseas calls will be free. Now of course, this is not going to change your life but nevertheless free is free right? So yes, if you make many short calls overseas then you won’t be charged for the first minute of the call. If you call for less than a minute then even better, it will be completely free. Of course, again there are some caveats which you should probably be aware of. Firstly, you do need to have credit on your Hangouts account. But to be honest if you’re calling abroad often then it is probably safe to assume you do have credit. Either way, you need it. The second caveat is that it is only available for calls to 25 countries. The list is quite long so to not bore you here is it broken down. In Europe the countries include the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. In the Americas countries include USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Dominican Republic. Other countries include Russia, China, India South Korea and Australia. Phew.
So there you go. Not exactly a breath-taking freebie but nevertheless, something for nothing. If you call abroad then you won’t be charged for the first minute as long as it is to one of the countries listed. And don’t worry there is no need to check. Until the end of the year if you make a call to any of the listed countries via Hangouts a small Google card type thing will pop-up telling you the first minute is free. Actually its not a bad freebie with Christmas approaching. Now you can call everyone you know around the world and quickly say Happy Christmas and then immediately hang up again and you won’t be charged a thing. Although do beware Google note “subject to usage and abuse limits”. Those pesky terms and conditions.