IM+: All In One Messenger For Mobile Phone, iPod and iPad users (Review)

Instant Messaging on mobile phone’s is becoming more and more common with the availability of powerful smartphones. Many mobile applications including Fring, Nimbuzz, etc are competing with each other to provide the best instant messaging experience. IM+, an IM app developed by SHAPE Services, is yet another powerful device available for mobile phone users. Courtesy SHAPE Services, i have had a chance to test their IM client on my Nokia 5230 and after using it for a period of 2 weeks, am glad that I discovered this IM client! Read on the review below to know why.

IM+ Review

The installation size of IM+ is just over 1 MB, which is much less than some of the popular clients like Fring or Nimbuzz and it can be installed either on the phone memory or memory card (mmc). No other additional application is installed besides the core app. Once you install IM+, the initial screen will ask you to setup different IM accounts. Once you have setup the required account, the current status of all those accounts reflects on the tabs shown on top of the screen (nicely arranged in the form of small icons for each IM). As far the configurability of IM+ is concerned, almost all the areas can be configured according to the needs of the user (some of the options are really helpful). Other than providing, the basic options of setting the current status (Offline/Online/Busy, etc), setting the status message, hiding offline contacts and sorting of contacts, IM+ also provides some “next level” configurations like:

• SMS style chat messages,
• Support for varied number of IM services viz. MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, AIM, Jabber, ICQ, Facebook, MySpace, Skype and Twitter,
• Chat animation (relaxes your mind when you spend long periods in front of your mobile!),
• Controlling the number of chat messages displayed,
• Background theme,
• Background alerts in form of vibrations or sound alerts,
• Pop up notifications (really helpful),
• Auto Away time period (no other app provides this functionality),
• Secured file transfer be it sound or image or any other file,
• Plethora of default templates and emoticons (saves a great deal of time and is fun too!), etc.

Besides being a feature rich application, its RAM consumption is minimal thus allowing you to be online without fearing about any uncalled for application termination or battery consumption. All in all, I have found IM+ to be the perfect IM application available at-least for symbian users. Though ebuddy, Nimbuzz and Fring are some good IM apps however i’ve ditched them for IM+!

IM+ is a paid mobile application (cost varies for different platforms) available for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile (touchscreen and non-touchscreen), Symbian S60 (including S60v5), Symbian^3, Android (including Samsung Galaxy S), Java phones and Palm webOS. You can try IM+ before buying it by downloading the trial from the official website of SHAPE Services (IM+).