Numerous social networking, messaging and calling apps have been thronging the app market off late. Google Chat, however, stands in a league of its own. It may not offer some premium features that are offered by other messaging apps, but Google Chat is preferred by many users due to the simplicity of its functions. The biggest pro of using Google Chat is that it is inbuilt within the Gmail account. Therefore, one does not have to separately download the Google Chat app. All that one needs to do is log in to the Gmail account and start chatting!
Many people often mistake Google Chat and Google Talk to be one and the same thing. But, in fact, these two are completely different applications, though both are a product of Google. Google Talk is a completely separate app which needs to be downloaded from the internet. Subsequently, you need to add contacts to your GTalk by sending them add requests. On the other hand, Google Chat is inbuilt within a Gmail account and is therefore more convenient to use, although Google Chat offers comparatively less communication options than Google Talk.
Another big advantage of Google Chat is that a user can even make calls to another person’s landline phone or mobile phone, as long as they linked their phone number with their Gmail account.
Google Chat also comes in very handy in emergency situations with their SMS sending options. As long as the recipient’s Gmail account has been linked to a phone number, one can simply type in a message in the chat window while the other person is offline and the message will be delivered in the form of an SMS on his mobile. One drawback is that the mobile carrier service might charge the recipient for the SMS.
Video calling has also never been easier than it is with Google Chat. While other apps require you to download the app first and then follow a complicated procedure to start a video chat, all that you need to do start a video chat through your Google account is to click on the video camera shaped icon in the chat window. One can also start a video chat without even opening the text chat box by simply clicking the option “start video chat”.
Any communication app would be incomplete without the option of group chats or conference calls. Google Chat takes care of this necessity too by allowing the users to add as many other people as they want in a group chat. The only condition is that the other user’s chat client should also support group chats.
Finally, Google Chat has incorporated several features to customize your Google Chat account as per your preferences. One of the fun features is that you can change the display picture of any contact without letting that contact know. If you have not chosen any picture, then their default pic will be displayed and will get updated as and when they change it. So, go check out these cool features of Google Chat today!