Ebuddy XMS Available for Meego! Beta Version for Symbian As Well!! ( + Initial Review)

Download:

Meego:  http://bit.ly/xmsmeego

S60 V5: http://t.co/GhZRqHT4

S^3: http://t.co/DhMTW4hA

Go beyond words.

Message any way you want, how much you want. eBuddy XMS enables free real-time messaging for smartphones, with text, pictures, video and more.

eBuddy XMS. Do more than SMS.

IT’S SOLID

Messaging you can count on. eBuddy XMS shows you when messages are sent and read. And you’ll enjoy stable performance, built by the messaging pros at eBuddy.

Thanks to S.A. for the tip 🙂

Note: Apologies for the lack of screen-shots/initial impression, but I don’t have a Meego device :/ will Update with S^3 screenshots as soon as I get it installed.

First Impressions:

As soon as you start-up eBuddy XMS for the first time you get a nice little prompt message to search your Phonebook for contacts, nothing new there; what is new however is the Prompt to also search your Facebook for people who use eBuddy XMS (a nice way to break the ice with that someone who you’ve been silently stalking for the past 6 months..). After scanning you’re prompted for your real name as well as your phone number so other people can find you.

Tha app itself has two main layouts/screens one for contacts and one for messages, nothing too complicated. Simple, clean, pretty. Note that the application itself has been optimized for Symbian Belle (Notice the different font and icons on the status bar above); Which incidentally IS NOT accessible within the app 🙁 .

Messaging is simple and basic, but the major thing that ticks me off is the lack of split screen input (same major fault as Kik messenger) eBuddy Y U NO SHOW ME WHERE I TYPE!!! Besides that through my initial testing the messages were sent/received at a decent time, no obvious delay.

Another major issue is that there is no ‘settings option’ which is  a problem since it seems that eBuddy was connecting to 3G even though my home WiFi network was available (and connected as well for whatsapp at the time).

Another thing that must be mentioned is that the app hangs from time to time, even when simply switching between messaging and contacts tabs.

Overall sadly I can’t find anything special in eBuddy XMS that would entice me to leave whatsapp for it, the lack of splitscreen input, smileys, buggy UI and hidden settings leave much to be desired. In all honesty the only reason I could imagine using this is if my girl-friend had a N9/N950 – Imagine…. a Nerdy Nokia fan hottie 😉 and even then I’d probably choose to text her.

Of course I’m being too harsh, I only tried out the S^3 beta of eBuddy XMS so it itsn’t fair to set a final verdict; hopefully the developers might read this and write down a to do list of what must be done… Till then Whatsapp I choose you (mainly for the larger user base, no need to convert anyone)

Update: The people running eBuddys twitter account just tweeted me promising a bunch if fixes upon official release, something to look forward to (I love developers who actually pay attention to what end-users want) thanks eBuddy developers.