Proud Geek

I am on an odyssey … To find the “perfect” instant messaging program for my Palm Treo 650. I had been using Verichat, but it has sadly been discontinued. (Why? Why!?) I’m now searching for a good replacement. EQO Mobile is the fourth instant messaging program I’ve tried - see my past reviews of the Palm 650 versions of Mundu, IM+, and WebMessenger.

In a nutshell: I didn’t like EQO Mobile at all. Out of the four, it ranks dead last thus far. Yes, even lower than IM+, which I disliked immensely. It’s horribly slow (at least on my Treo 650), requires too many button-presses, and had no customization at all.

Pros:

• Available for a wide variety of phones, smartphones, and Blackberries — supposedly over 400 handsets altogether.
• Clean, crisp look - icons and colors were neat, non-clashing.
• Can log-in to one AIM / ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Skype, and Jabber / GoogleTalk account apiece.

Cons:

• On the Treo 650, have to have Palm’s WebSphere Java installed first.
• Very s….l….o….w……….. on my Treo 650. Not sure if it’s a bug or something. I kept pushing a button twice thinking it hadn’t detected my keypress the first time. It had indeed detected my keypress, but was reacting slowly. Sometimes took a second or two to react. Ugh!
• Every time I started up / restarted the EQO program, it asked me the same two questions each time - whether it was ok to use the Treo’s airtime to connect EQO. Yes, already!
• The log-in / connection process was slow - took me nearly a minute to log into and finally view my AIM buddy list.
• Every time I leave EQOMobile (ie, to read emails or use another application on my Treo), I’m then logged out. I then have to go through the entire (and SLOW!) log-in process again.
• No customization at all - whether alerts, looks, or any other preferences.
• When I received an IM, there were no alerts (or at least, no visual / vibrating alerts).
• The icons that EQO uses for AIM buddies aren’t the same as the usual AIM icons - leaving me a bit confused as to the meaning of some of them. (Remember, I don’t read the users manuals.)
• On some screens, using the 5-way pad’s button on my Treo didn’t work for some buttons - I had to press the screen instead. And vice versa, too - not consistent.
• I felt I had to press too many buttons from log-in to finally be able to send an instant message.
• When I select a buddy, I’m then viewing our (often blank) conversation history. I then have to press another button to compose something, then yet another button to send it.

I only had to try out EQO Mobile for several hours before I uninstalled it (and the Websphere Java app as well) from my Palm. Definitely not one I’m going to use again, unless they make significant updates and modifications.