I have written about the latest GoogleTalk and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice



After the hype (however short-lived it was), I requested Gill Cleeren to send me a Windows Live Messenger invite after stumbling upon this post.



He obliged me and I promptly downloaded the latest Windows Messenger IM client. I must admit that the interface was very attractive and I must say the ’send search results’ feature was very innovative. In just about a week of using it, while logging in I got a message to upgrade it if I still wanted to use it. I upgraded promptly, found that the new client interface was very sleeky, and had a ‘lite’ feel just like ICQ Lite or GoogleTalk. However, there was no compromise on the features. The voice quality was excellent and the other features that were there before the upgrade were still there [and I am still checking]




I guess it has been about two months [?] since then and suddenly I was prompted again to upgrade the client if I wanted to continue using it. I did not do it until today and I must say that the first look was impressive to say the least. I have never seen a better-looking IM client than the latest Windows Live Messenger 8.0 (still beta). On signing in, the messenger pop-up card [Windows Live Today] gave me, what I thought, a 2-second glimpse of what was in my Hotmail inbox. It was eerily similar to the Yahoo! Messenger pop-up [Inside Yahoo!].



See the images below:

Have you noticed, the one feature there that Inside Yahoo! does not have that the Windows Live today has? Well, notice at the bottom of the Windows Live Today. You have the option of doing with this annoying popup as soon as your messenger launches by checking the box. Yahoo! should come up with something similar.



Anyway, I am not comparing the two clients here. This post is about the new Windows Live Messenger 8.0 beta as it is after the latest upgrade. I do not remember having seen this feature before I upgraded it. It is that there is a ‘video calling’ feature as well. I haven’t tried this yet. Although, you could use webcams in Windows Messenger before, I still have to see how the latest video calling feature works.



I have a request for you all here. Do let me know if there is anything in the Windows Live Messenger 8.0 beta after the latest upgrade that can be termed as ‘new’ other than the ones I have already mentioned in this post.



Once again, I must say that as far as the voice is concerned, I give the latest Windows Live Messenger the top spot in terms of quality over all the VoIP clients that I have used so far. What was your experience? Do let us know.