Skype Mobile on the Android platform is a system that works extremely well it seems. I’ve used it extensively in Skype to Skype calls and have made a one minute call to a landline to test quality. It is a free app, however if you’re making Skype to Landline calls you will need to purchase Skype Credits.

With Skype Mobile, it’s a fairly easy process of simply signing in with your existing Skype credentials; everything will be transferred over from your Skype contacts. You can be invited to an existing chat group, start a new one, and call people. I’ve not yet gotten the opportunity to call a group of people, however I have had a group of people call me and the sound quality is excellent! It did not seem to matter if I was in a 3G coverage area or not, I was able to hear everyone clearly and there was not a single moment where anything broke up or had static run through it.

I do have a few gripes with the application though, several times throughout my call I had been dropped. I’m not sure if this had to do with the fact that I logged in on Skype on my laptop (to test the response time of the chat) or just because the host dropped the call, but I was never able to “Join Call” from my phone and always had to be called back.

I also wish that when making or receiving a call you stayed in the application and were not taken back to the Android calling screen. It’s slightly jarring to be having a conversation via chat when you’re suddenly called from another Skype user. Then you have to go back to the home screen of Android, and back into the Skype app to be able to continue your conversation.

Aside from those two minor things, the app does exactly what one would think that a Skype app should do. On top of that it does those things well, and I’m sure that the Skype team will continue to improve upon it and maybe my complaints will be fixed in a future update. I give the Skype Mobile app a B.

Last 5 posts by Arthur Boilanger