Skype vs. Gizmo Project update

So, a few days ago, I had a post about Skype vs. Gizmo Project. I’ve had both up and running a good deal lately, although I haven’t used either that much, simply because I just never seem to be on with friends. However, I’ve got another observation or two, since I’ve now actually used Gizmo for a longer call.

Both Skype and Gizmo really seem to offer comparable call quality. That’s not to say that they’re identical, but for all I can hear, they sound very similar. I really do like that Gizmo offers a little status indicator showing estimated call quality using a signal strength sort of indicator, whereas with Skype I’m kind of in the dark. In Skype, I can mouse over the other person’s icon and get a ton of detailed info in a tooltip, but it disappears rather quickly too, so I can’t sit and watch stats obsessively as I talk, which is a downside.

I’m a very big fan of being able to get my voicemails through email as opposed to a specific client, so Gizmo really wins there. On top of that, it’s free, so they doubly win. That being said, I feel like the quality of the voicemail is a bit lower on Gizmo. I left a friend a message and he says he heard about five seconds of silence. When I listened to a message I had left myself, I had to turn my sound up a bit. It’d be nice if the Gizmo voicemails were a bit louder in the file itself, as opposed to me having to crank my sound up a bit, only to wind up pissing myself when I get an IM or an email or some other event happens that causes a very loud sound, freaking me out.

I think it’s going to wind up being like text instant messaging right now: I don’t stick to one client. I have AOL Instant Messenger, which I use rather heavily (in part because I used to work for AOL and so I have a ton of friends and family on the service still), but I also use MSN Messenger quite a bit these days, as I’ve made a number of friends who use that heavily. I have friends who sit on both lists too, and we talk randomly on whatever one seems more convenient at that second. I’ll probably wind up running both Skype and Gizmo side by side when I run them.

Also, I have to say, Gizmo is absolutely amazingly awesome, because they actually linked to my blog! They posted a link to my original Skype vs. Gizmo Project post. It’s under recent news. My friend Jeremiah took a screenshot and cropped it, so I’m stealing the screenshot and posting it here, with a link back to Gizmo Project. If you guys at Gizmo look back at this, thanks a ton for the link!