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When I first heard that Skype had released a beta client for mobiles, I was rather excited. I’m probably not the only N95 user that expected they could finally make VOIP calls easily through Skype. I wasn’t prepared for the disappointment that I couldn’t.

To be fair, it is listed in the details that it will make a local rate phone call to allow you to place Skype calls, but why? If I’ve got a Wi-fi connection, why can’t I use it? Okay, for long-distance and international calls, it will save me money, but that’s not what I was after.

The client itself is simple to install and set up, and once logged in, sure enough I could see my contacts fine (over the wi-fi connection). It is lacking in features compared to the full client, but the main reason for having it is to place calls, and this works well. It could really do with the same test call function that the full client has, as this is very helpful to make sure things are set up properly.

The beta Skype client runs on a range of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung phones, but in terms of the Nokia N series is only listed as working for the N95 and N80 (if I didn’t have one of these though, I would be tempted to try it out anyway just in case).

It would be perfectly acceptable if it did what I expect Skype to do, make calls online, however at the moment it just seems broken not being able to do that.

Related Posts:
Skype Beta for Nokia N95 now available
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