A few years ago, I tried Skype! I was so very impressed! I really thought Skype might be the future of communications. And as time has gone by, Skype has gotten better and better. I often Chat with a bud in Belfast, and almost always it's a great connection, as we look at one another and share stories and visit! Skype has the PC to PC thing down! I was so impressed that I got a Skype number so that I could use Skype to call traditional phones and they could easily call me. I never really used that feature much however, and when my contract expired, I elected not to continue that service.
With both services, you have the ability to give persons your Google/Skype number and have that number forwarded to the appropriate phones. Both services include Voicemail, text messaging and call waiting. Both allow you call other PC's and video Chat. For Skype this is based upon your contacts from within Skype. Voice depends upon your contacts in Google. both services allow you to call overseas at per minute international rates. So with so many similarities, which one is better?
User Interface
In this guys opinion, when it comes to user interface, Skype wins hands down! For the desktop, you have a standalone application and toolbars that integrate into Firefox and Internet Explorer. Click on a number within a web page and Skype dials it! With the new Skype 5, tight Facebook integration has been added also. You can update your Status, read your follower's posts and if they use Skype also, you can call them or text them.
With Google Voice there is no standalone application. It's inserted into Gmail's Google's "Talk" add-on as a hyperlink for you to "Call Phone". Clicking this launches a small window where you start to type a contact's name and their phone number options come up. Call quality for me has been average. I seem to hear the other party just fine, but many times, I'm asked to repeat myself as they tell me I am breaking up. I do recall having this problem occasionally with Skype, but not as frequently as I have had it with Google Voice. Interestingly, this feature is very much tied to Google's Talk, but it's no where to be found in the desktop version of the software. Chrome users will be happy to know, that Voice is an add-on to allow you to dial a phone from the top of the browser. The last I checked, the add on for Firefox was broken and not working correctly. I'm not aware of a plug-in for IE.
Voicemail
The Voicemail feature with Skype works just like traditional voicemail. Someone leaves you a message, and you click on it and listen. Google's voicemail is much more flexible. For one, you can sort contacts into groups. These groups can get their own message that you leave. Google also uses a Translate function where the message is transcribed into text. Now this is far from 100% Accurate, but it's still a great feature. The coolest thing about this is, I get all of this on my Nexus One as well as my computer! So I read the message and if I want to, I hit the play button to listen. From within this window whether on my computer or my Nexus, I can call the person back with hardly any effort. Because this is so tightly integrated into the Android OS, I can also Text the person using my Google Voice Number from my phone or from my computer. Voicemail for Google Voice is much superior to Skype.
Price
So for both services, PC to PC video calls are free. On Skype, to get a local number, and the ability to call any phone in the USA and Canada as well as the ability for persons to call you. With a Skype number, the service starts at about $40.00 per year. There are some pretty impressive packages if you have a need to do a lot of over-seas calling, which basically gives you unlimited monthly plans for $14.00 per month that is pretty much all you can eat phone calling all over the World. Or you can pay by the minute currently at $0.03 minute per for most countries.Skype offers several packages so I suggest you check out what might be right for you!
But this is where Google get's most people's attention. Currently, the Google Voice number is Free. Calls to any phone in the USA and Canada is also FREE! Google says that if they can continue to make profit on international calls, the calls made inside the USA will stay FREE! (NOTE: Activation requires a working cell phone) And if you are running an Android 2.2 device, you can use the Google Voice number or your Cell phone number.
Conclusion
Skype is a more mature service and is probably at this time a more reliable service. It's a simple download to get the desktop app up and running and to expand it with a Skype number is pretty painless. Skype is also beta testing a Group Video chat feature, and the latest version integrates Facebook into the Skype interface. But let's face it! Google gives you a whole lot for no $ at all, its a very flexible, and customizable service., especially if you are using an Android Cell Phone. Still, there are things I would love to see Google do with Voice! I would love to see Voice totally integrated into their "Talk" Desktop application, or into gmail with a better intuitive interface. I think Google could improve on their download process also. The process for me was strange. I was asked to download the Voice plug-in within Google Talk (the web version) Then, the next day, when I launched it, I was asked if I wanted to get a Google Voice Number, to take full advantage of the service. The whole process was confusing. But once I got the number, I really started to appreciate the service!
Using either of these services gives you several advantages. For example, if you are questioning why you still have a home phone, this might be one more reason to cut it off! Because you can forward this number to several phones at once, you can give out this number to all family and friends. They call this number and it automatically forwards to your cell or your work phone. Also, the ability to text from these numbers means you can easily text family and friends while you are working from your computer. And if you are just too busy to take the call, the voicemail is there waiting on you. And with Google, that voicemail will also show up on your device! Skype also offers Skype Phones that you can purchase that works similar to a wireless phone. Is the Skype service worth $40.00 per year? Before Google's Voice, I would have said YES! But when it's free to get up and running with Google Voice, I would suggest you start there and see if it works for you!
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