Slick IM for mobiles – Review
Instant messaging has been on a rise. Many youngsters & business entrepreneurs prefer to chat in real time with their friends or clients rather than sending an email & then waiting for reply. There are many protocols like yahoo, gtalk, windows live messenger etc where people are chatting away at any point of time. Casual chatters come from their desktop pc’s or laptop’s but the advanced users who need to be online at any time from anywhere need a client software which can be installed on their phone.
A mobile client gives freedom to user to connect to IM network from any place. There are many clients out there which can be installed on your phone as per it’s platform i.e java, windows mobile, symbian etc. Being a chat addict, my top priority was to get an IM client for my symbian powered smartphone, the Nokia 5700. Throughout my search I leaped from number of java and symbian applications but found none which could be given the title of best IM for mobile chat junkiez.
Finally I came across a IM client named “slick”. Slick is a multi protocol client developed by Lonely cat games. Lonely cat games is a renowned name in symbian apps, they are the makers of the ever popular .avi player for symbian named ‘Smartmovie’ & also mp3 player ‘UltraMP3′. I thought that slick must be something different as lonely cat games always comes out with applications different from the regular group. Here is what, I found out after testing it for around one month.
I downloaded the latest version of slick from the offical website for my s60 v3 powered Smartphone, the Nokia 5700. The site says Slick 0.43 is in beta stages, so I kept this in mind while testing it.
Interface/UI :
Slick keeps a simple UI, which makes using slick a snap. You can get what you want without looking from pillar to post. The UI is styled similar to other lonely cat applications. If you have seen classic windows theme, then slick UI is almost a replica of it. You can change the color, hue, saturation of different elements of the program. This feature lets you create your personalized UI, but it just changes the color tone and nothing else. Personally, I think lonely cat games should revamp the UI of slick, it seems ancient when compared with UI of apps like ebuddy, Morange etc.
Protocols Supported :
Slick supports all major IM networks/protocols. It lets you connect to Yahoo, Google, Aim, Msn, Icq & Jabber networks. This huge list of protocol means you don’t have to install multiple clients on your mobile phone. There is no limitation on connecting to number of networks like some other apps have. You can connect to all networks at once. I haven’t tried all as I don’t have account on all of them. I have successfully connected to three protocols at once.
Chat Experience :
Chatting on slick was the best I ever had on mobile. There is a 2 window pane for chat, the first window list the chats you sent & received while the bottom pane is to input text to be sent. The most important advantage of this type of setup is that you get to see what your friend has said, before you construct your reply. Many apps don’t have such dual pane window, which makes it difficult to construct reply & also review any new chat sent by your friend while typing your chat out. Then there are good smileys bundled to enhance your chatting experience. The yahoo smileys in slick are same as seen on desktop version of yahoo messenger & the even animate like them. Slick even supports buzzing the recipient, which is known as ‘nudge’. Besides all these features, there are two more features which you won’t get to see among mobile IM clients. The first is file sending/receiving. This is the feature which I liked the most. It makes sharing files a snap & fuss free process. Slick presents a intuitive file manager which makes sending as simple as it gets. Another advantage of slick over other apps supporting file transfer is it sends the file directly to the recipient in real-time unlike some apps which first upload the file to their servers & provide the download link to the recipient. There is no limitation on type or size of file to be transferred. The complete transfer process is almost similar to that on pc. But file transfers are not allowed on protocols except yahoo. I was disappointed due to this, but anyways those preferring yahoo to chat(including me) won’t miss anything. And the second feature of slick which I haven’t seen in any other app is copy-paste chats. This nifty feature lets you copy chats & save them to anywhere in your phone(notes, calendar, messages etc). You can also paste big chats from your phone’s clipboard. These small yet useful features will mean you never miss your computer for chatting.
Memory Consumption :
Slick uses around 2MB of your phone’s RAM. This is good as you can multi-task leaving slick running in background.
Positives :
> Packed with features
> Supports large no of protocols
> Small memory footprint
Negatives :
> Crashes very often
> File transfer not available on other protocols other than Yahoo
> Randomly the screen goes blank or the text becomes garbled
Some features I would like to see in upcoming version of slick :
> Solve the crashing issue
> Allow file sending on other protocols
> Add more smileys
> Improve the UI
Conclusion :
Slick is better than the other softwares . There are some issues which need to be sorted out before it can be given the crown of best messenger for mobiles(Symbian). If you don’t mind the crashing issues go ahead there is no better instant messengers than slick. Let’s see what happens when the final version come out.
Related posts:
- Opera Mobile 10 Beta Launched ! Opera software has released the beta version of their popular...
- Two years with Nokia 5700 Xpress Music Two years ago, exactly on 2nd December 2007, I purchased...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
I am not gonna try it coz there are alot of beter alternatives in the market and slick has nothing new.
If you are sick of Yahoo messenger then TRY
FREEWARE “” YAMEE ” get it from getjar.com
Regards:
Gourav Sharma
Humm. litterly yaar today i got it from another source and tried it .. its really different , unlike any other im
it gives us most of PC experience on mobile
And no error at all. wonderfull i’ll post it in my forum too
Ya, it’s great.
Just it crashes often other than that I have no issues with slick.
To me on my N72 it never crashed and best feature
of slick for me is “FILE SHARING” and “TABBED CHATTING”
Now its my only IM in mobile “kudos to LCG developers”
Maybe the Slick for s60 v2 is more stable than s60 v3. I did not test s60 v2.
And these LCG developers are truly awesome, nobody innvates like they do.
im using the s60 v3 about 1 year now i only had one crash and that happen coz i use other soft in the background so its not a big deal. i really love this soft coz i think its stable and i can use the phone longer duration better than other soft but for the downside it has only few smiles ebuddy is a better if u use more smiles like me. but i still recommend Slick for a easy usage coz ebuddy interface SUCKS
and tooooo slow to type
Slick is the Best
can anyone tell how to add more smiles to it coz its the only problem i have with slick
@mich – There is no way you can increase the smilies in Slick. Though slick did upgrade their smilies in their new version. You can email Lonely Cat Games & suggest them to include more smilies in the upcoming version.
I most often remember the smilies (symbols used in smilies) of Yahoo messenger(PC) & type the same in Slick. If the person you are chatting is on YM on PC, he will be able to see the smilies.
Good to hear that you loved Slick
Hay,
Have you tried MXit ? Download from http://www.mxit.com/wap or http://www.mxit.com
It’s really by far, awesome! And there’s no charge.
Regards,
David
try nimbuzz.its my personal favorite.it support voip,all protocols ,file sharing even has a feature to locate your friends current location.i tried it and its simply the best,u will not believe it unless you try it.get the latest version from http://www.getjar.com
I have tried Nimbuzz, its good.
The latest version are even better.
Have you ever tried eBuddy?
How do you rate it compared to slick?
Need you opinion. Thanks.
@zora – ebuddy is good but nothing compared to Slick. If you own a Symbian smartphone, then Slick is way ahead of any other IM client. If you have non-symbian phone which allows only java apps then you can use ebuddy. Its good enough.
I can’t get past the “initializing” stage when i try and sign into msn using slick. any idea why?
email me please. bagu222@gmail.com
THANKS!
Make sure your operator supports ‘GPRS’ service as Slick doesn’t works on ‘WAP’ connections. Cross check whether you have correctly entered your login ID & password.