ThinkEdem Blog

I decided to take another look at the labs version of GTalk. I’m an IM whore, and I really love the simple yet powerful google talk client. Last time I tried the Labs version it lacked many of the normal client’s functions, and it hadn’t really added anything useful. What has changed?

First, let’s see the functions the normal client has and the Labs version doesn’t have.

• Voice chat. I can live without it, for the last year I haven’t used it – but I have to agree, the voice chat in gtalk was a very good one. Probably one of the best. So, that’s one point for the Good Old One.
• File transfer. Now that’s a big drawback. … or it would be, if I’d share files with my friends through gchat, which I really don’t, because they usually use the chat in gmail, which can’t accept files anyways. Still, since gtalk’s file transfer proved to be the fastest so far (comparing to msn, amsn, pidgin, trillian and skype), that’s two points for Good Old One.
• Show Current Music Track as custom message. I usually use that feature, because I’m a scrobblewhore, and I miss that feature. Of course my friends could go check last.fm or my msn acc, but still, one point for Good Old One.
• Settings. They’re practically gone. All you can set is whether or not you want to get popup notifications about new e-mails and calendar events. One point for Good Old One.

After the first round, it’s 4:0 for the Good Old One.

Next, what has changed?

• Smiles. In the god old one, certain smiles were coloured blue. But they weren’t converted into small (or large) pictures like they do in msn (oooh how I hate when people use half-a-screen big pictures unescaped, so when they write, I have to guess the words…). In Labs Version, you can choose from three versions: the yellow speech bubble smiles, the yellow square faces and the slightly animated characters.  I loved the practically lack of smiles in Good Old, but the characters are bearable, and you still don’t have to watch not-really-funny custom smiles, so that’s a tie.
• Contact list. In Good Old One, you can choose to see all of your contacts, including the offline and non-chat ones too. In Labs Version, you only see as many as fits into your window, thus possibly hiding online ones. Then again, the “show all” option is quite handy – but I preferred having a scrollable window showing my contacts to a paged popdown menu showing the ones not in the main window. Almost a tie, but still, one point for Good Old One.
• Chat windows. They’re gone. Now all you have is one tabbed window, one tab for your contact list, and all your chats appear as new tabs. It’s a good idea, but right now it has a big flaw. The tabs are on the top of the window, in one row. If you have too many tabs, some of them just disappear. No scrolling, no second row added, they just disappear. If you increase the window size, they can appear again, and if you click on the contact on your contact list, you’re on their tab again, but that’s still lame. Good Old One used several chat windows, but they used an intelligent resizing mechanism, and their clutter was minimal. Still, I’d prefer a well working tabbed window, so that’s a tie again.

Second round still favoured for Good Old One, leading 5:0 against Labs Version.

And finally, what’s new?

• Google Calendar integration. Good Old One already knew Orkut links (though my friends don’t really use Orkut), and had gmail notifications, now you get gcal integration too. Haven’t tested yet, and since I get sms notifications, I don’t really need this part. Still, it could prove useful. Oh well, if Current Music Track worth a point, so does this one.
• Youtube integration. Now we’re talking. If you send or receive a youtube link, it won’t show as a link. Instead, you get the preview picture just like in youtube, along with the title of the video, and a Play and an Open link. Latter will open the link in a browser, but the Play… it plays in the current chat window. Yes, it does. If you switch to a different tab, the playback pauses until you switch back. That bought me. I vote two points for that.

So far I couldn’t find anything else new. That makes 5:3 for Good Old One.

Still, I’ll use the Labs version for a while. Integrated youtube is THAT awesome.