DROIDICAL

I have been trying to figure out the cleanest Skype Out solution on Android.  The official Skype app for Android really only does IM and then uses your mobile phone (minutes) for outgoing calling. This is actually not bad if you can spend the minutes or don’t call frequently. I always thought it would be cool to get a ‘real’ voip solution using my existing Skype account (without spending on another VOIP solution like SIP or whatever).

The two best options I have found so far are Fring and Nimbuzz. I found Fring to be a little buggy and cludgy on the UI side of things. I liked the clean Nimbuzz approach. Easy to see the diff between your different IM accounts. For Skype out type calling I could only call land lines if they were in my buddy list… and if I ’showed offline contacts’ in the menu. 

The other advantage to Nimbuzz is after the outbound call connects it gives you a dialpad (going through an automated system) which is handy. The bummer is if you want to call someone they have to be a contact on your list… you can’t just dial a number like you can in your normal skype client.

I have read of people enabling sipdroid with Skype out info but it hasn’t worked for me yet.  Until something better I will probably use Nimbuzz (which also works well for multi-headed IM client)…. so if you know of a another solution let me know.

This is a general reply to all the geek writers that keep reporting how terrible it is that there are all these different android devices out there for users to try to figure out.  This is just writing from your own perspective.

Most users are not going around and trying to figure out all the different ‘Android’ devices.  They are not like you.  They are not comparing Nexus One with Droid or looking at the differences between 1.5, 2.0, 2.0.1 and 2.1 to make their decision. They are not sampling every possible smartphone on the market, looking at trends, attempting to make sure they are on the ‘best’ platform or device.

I think for most people the search starts with the network provider, then goes from there, especially now that there are ‘options’ on each network.