ith the rise of front-facing cameras on smartphones, the need for a good video chat app has increased, too. FaceTime and Skype 3.0 (Free, 4 stars) are currently the best in show, but they are only available for iOS devices. Android users have Fring (Free, 2.5 stars), Qik Video Connect(Free, 2.5 stars), and Tango (Free, 2.5 stars), and, while each app has interesting, innovative features, each also has one thing in common: poor video chat performance. Google has set out to rectify this with the addition of video chat to Google Talk, which will ultimately add a native, built-in video chat app to all Android devices. It's a step in the right direction, but it feels incomplete. The video quality is good, but performance is spotty. And Google needs to get this app into the Android Market if it wants to have a real contender on its hands.
Availability and User Interface
Right now, Google Talk with video chat is only available to users running Android 2.3.4. And right now, the only device running Android 2.3.4 is Google's Nexus S. So essentially, if you own an Android device, but it isn't a Nexus S, you're out of luck. Sorry. Google has not made it clear if this latest version of Google Talk will be made available in the Android Market, in which case it would reach a vastly wider audience. Hopefully that will be the case, as it is likely that many Android devices currently in users' hands will never see an update to 2.3.4—or the Google Talk video chat that comes with it.
