Hands On: Fring Video Calling on the HTC EVO 4G

Qik was the announced partner for video chat for Sprint's HTC EVO 4G, but Fring has beaten them to it by offering video chat first for Android phones. However, first doesn't always mean best. We played around with Fring to find out if it holds up under scrutiny.

Fring is a VoIP and video calling app available for a wide range of phones, including Android, iPhone, Symbian, and Windows Phones. It lets you IM, make regular calls using voice-over-IP, and make video calls. The IM feature supports AIM, Google Talk, Skype, Twitter, and MSN.

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Since we only had one EVO, we tested Fring using an EVO and a Google Nexus One. On the EVO side, I could see myself in a little box in the top right corner and the camera from the Nexus One in a large box in the center of the screen. Since other U.S. Android phones don't have front-facing cameras, it's more difficult to do a proper video call; you have to turn the phone's back to your face.

We tested video calling from phone to phone over a Wi-Fi connection running 8 Mbits/s down and 3 Mbits/s up, but video and sound quality, overall, were unimpressive. Graphic artifacts showed up often and audio was usually out of sync. When we tried an EVO 4G-to-Skype-desktop call, results were better. The Skype desktop user had a smoother experience with better video quality, and as expected, the EVO 4G's picture and sound quality were slightly better too.

We couldn't test video chat using the EVO's 4G service because there is no 4G at our offices in New York City.

We ran into other problems using Android-to-Android video chat. Generally the volume was too low when using the earpiece, with no way to make it louder. The speakerphone sounded heavily distorted to the point where you sometimes couldn't hear what was being said. Both call volume and speakerphone quality are important because if you're going to be looking at a screen during a video call, you need a good speakerphone. The app works with a wired headset, but that isn't ideal.

Overall, video calls on Fring for Android are an unimpressive experience so far. It does work and in some rare circumstances�such as Android to desktop Skype�it even works decently. But, for now, there aren't enough reasons to justify using this video calling app. Let's see what Qik can do when they come out with their Android video chat product next week.