BuddyTalk

5.0 stars

"Annoyingware, but forgiven"

November 20, 2003  |   By D-cat

Summary

It does what it says and at very nice quality. What it lacks is mere annoyances that result from lack of some basic features and inability to save default settings. For example, when it's started, it always comes up (cannot start minimised), and it always starts in PC-to-Phone mode, which is really cheap, but not free. It also starts up a web page that simply tells you that community chat has been discontinued (used to be an auto-signin page). When searching for other users, the result list is fixed at a 50 maximum and the user cannot choose how the list is sorted. Also, this software will require an enhanced Full-duplex (separate record and playback mixer controls: eg. Sound Blaster Live) for smooth operation. It will function on more primitive full duplex cards, but one or both users may recieve an echo. Half duplex operation is not supported. Unconfirmed at the moment- it may have caused interference with my FTP server while in PC-to-PC chat.

I forgive the small annoyances in this software because it is version 1.0, it does have an effective central server-based call system, so you don't need to know the person youre trying to contact's IP, and the voice quality is very good. I was able for a short time to make the voice break up, but it took a solid bandwidth crunch and a heavy processor load (virus scan) to do it.

I does as it advertizes, simply needs to be made more user friendly.

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