App Review: WeChat – The new way to connect …

There is no dearth of chat cum audio/video applications namely Nimbuzz, TalkBox, WhatsApp with WhatsApp being the most popular [at least in India :)], today we review an interesting app named WeChat. WeChat is a robust, fast-performing, 100% free mobile voice, video and text messaging application with the strength of over 200 million users worldwide. For doing the review, we downloaded the app for Android from here. In the review, we look into the features of WeChat & compare with it’s close competitor WhatsApp.

Gist of “WeChat”

As mentioned above, WeChat is a free voice, video & text messaging application. Among the many features that this app has, the friend-discovery location based social features and shared streaming photo feeds from friends’ personal photo albums are something which is very unique to this. The user has the option to add contacts who are using WeChat or invite/connect with users using a unique id called QQ ID

Key Features of “WeChat”

Some interesting features of the app are:

1. Video/Voice Calling, Text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, photo/video sharing, location sharing, and contact information exchange.
2. Offers engaging one-on-one and group chat sessions with an extensive range of animated and custom emoticon and emoji art. The user can beautify the chat’s with customizable backgrounds.
3. Supports social networking via shared streaming content feeds and location-based social plug-ins [Shake & Look Around] to chat with and befriend local and international WeChat users.
4. Shake: Exchange ‘contact information exchange’ with nearby WeChat users, or connect with WeChat users worldwide who are eager to make new friends. I tried the “Shake” feature & could find couple of users from Korea who were shaking their device at the same time. Don’t know how useful this feature this unless you have a handful number of known people using this feature simultaneously.
5. Look Around: Connect with nearby WeChat community members who are also looking around. This feature is quite interesting since I could find couple of my “NearBy” friends who were using WeChat.

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WeChat vis-a-vis WhatsApp

When I used WeChat, the obvious comparison that came to mind is WhatsApp. There are couple of features in WeChat which are interesting when compared to WhatsApp namely – Drift Bottle : Write a message or talk, put the message in a bottle, and throw it to the virtual sea. Soon or later a random person will take the bottle with your message & (s)he could reply to you or add you in his/her contact list. Though this feature looks interesting but just like the “Shake”  feature we could not find it usable !!!

Walkie-Talkie Feature : WeChat offers the “Walkie Talkie” feature where a person can easily talk by pressing the “Tap to Talk” button. Also, if the audio is not clear; the user has the option delete that particular chat transcript.

Contact Backup : With WeChat, user can also Backup the address book to QQ ID Website
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One simple yet effective feature in WhatsApp is “Double Tick” which indicates that the other person has received the message or not & might be a good feature that can be taken by WeChat 🙂 In India, WhatsApp has a wider adoption compared to WeChat & Reliance Communications offers unlimited access for GSM subscribers Apart from features, WeChat would need to focus on partnering with Telecom operators to increase it’s user base. There is already a shift happening to WeChat & we need to wait who wins the “Chat” race 🙂

This review is a part of the Sponsored Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com.