I have discovered Viber a few months back and finally I have come to a conclusion to write about Viber vs. Skype. The clear winner is Skype for its vast availability on mobile devices, except BlackBerry, and not available for PC and Mac. No matter what, Skype can connect more to people not on the same device. However, I’m going to talk about with just one device, the iPhone 4, and Viber installed side by side with Skype. Why Skype? Why not compare Viber with Tango, or ooVoo, or Fring? I pick Viber because I have more friends on Viber than on the other ones and I have used Viber more than the other ones, at least for now. I have nothing bad to say about Tango, ooVoo or Fring. Although I have talked about Fring for the iPad and Nokia Symbian before, and Fring has been around longer and the service is just diminishing in voice quality. Skype has better voice quality than Fring. What about Viber? Is it better than Skype? Let see the pros and cons.
Viber has a good quality voice calls, however, it uses a different codec than Skype, I noticed that even with Skype, I can still make calls on Edge, but Viber would make the call, but call ends after 15 seconds, even though it was ringing on the other side. Attempting to pick up would not do anything, it would just simply disconnect. This was on 3G. On WiFi is fine, except at work, when there is sharing problem and the bandwidth is very limited, I had to test my voice connection with HeyTell Push to Talk app and when that works, I figured Viber can’t even handle low-fi voice data. I felt I had to double checked and turn on Skype and made a test call to my friend and it worked, both on heavy traffic WiFi and on EDGE. After a few months of use, I have found Viber works 90% of the time, however, this could change as Viber subscriber will grow and their network will be more hampered with either voice or text messaging.
I still prefer Viber though, because there’s still more advantages over Skype for iPhone 4 such as:
Saves Battery – It doesn’t need to be on the background and keep it running like Skype, so it won’t drain your battery.
Multitask – Even though the Application will give you a notice stating that you need to have the application running in the background, I actually tried it when I have the app closed, even from the double home button tap, it was completely off the multitasking bar, and it would still ring or get my messages
Text Messaging – It’s not really text messaging per say, it’s more like messaging, like Instant Messaging. Which is fine, and Viber can do text messaging to other phones without Viber, but it will switch to your Phone Text Messaging Software. If the other people don’t have Viber and you would like to make the call through Viber app, Viber will open your Phone and dial for you. This means, it won’t be free and will be a traditional voice calling which will take your minutes or credits.
Voice Quality – Not so good, even on WiFi. Sometimes, it would sound choppy, but still understandable. However, if I use the 3G network, it would be unbearably bad voice quality. I would have to say that Viber for Voice is almost useless. I have used Viber for a few months, and in my trial, at least the first time I’ve actually used Viber, the voice quality was better. Now that there are more of my friends using Viber, and probably many more of my friend’s friend who signed up, maybe Viber service can’t handle the increase of voice traffic?
Overall, I’m only using Viber for its Text Messaging purposes, which is free, and a lot of my friend has it.
As for Skype, I have to say that it is still a better choice for voice quality, however, Skype programmer needs to re-write it from scratch to take advantage of the multitask capability in iOS 4 and the next gen iOS 5. If Skype don’t update their Skype to have the ability to notify it’s users of a voice message is coming or incoming call without the App being open, then maybe they will lose more users who migrate to Viber, but that’s only if Viber upgrades their Voice Service. Otherwise, I’ll just have to use Skype to make a quick call, and then close the app. Leaving Skype app open just kills my battery pretty fast.
Hi,
This is a member of the Viber Development Team!
Thank you for your review of Viber. We are very happy to see that so many people worldwide take interest in our application.
I’d like to refer to your comment about sound quality:
As far as we know, there are no widespread issues with sound quality. On the contrary – we’ve been getting very positive feedback of people who use Viber when both sides are connected to high-speed WiFi connections. Please try to switch networks and see if the problem persists on different WiFi networks as well.
If anyone has any questions/suggestions for Viber, please feel free to write, and I will address them shortly.
Thanks,
Viber.
Hi Viber Team,
I figured Viber Team would come back if I post about Viber. Per comment on your audio quality, I’m sure there’s no issue to the voice service if we as the user are on High Speed WiFi connections. The same concept goes with FaceTime and Video Calling on Skype on High Speed WiFi. However, Skype, much like Viber, works on 3G. That’s when the audio quality is lacking, when I’m on 3G. Sometimes even when I’m on WiFi it would cut in and out, but it’s still bearable and could be annoying at times. Up to the point I would just use the sms, it’s clearer and to the point. I still have it on my iPhone, as more and more of my friends uses Viber on their Android and iPhone, it’s better than an app that is available only for one device. Still waiting for the BlackBerry version.
Thanks for posting your information for support.
3G networks can sometimes be disrupted and not fully handle VoIP calls (some would say – intentionally). This naturally affects Viber and damages its quality, and unfortunately there is nothing much we (Viber) can do about it – it’s in the hands of the cellular companies.
The good news is that in the future we plan to add a feature that’ll “lower” the quality of Viber calls on 3G calls if it detects that the connection is somewhat choppy, thus “sacrificing” on quality in order to assure stable calls on low-reception 3G areas.
Anyway, a WiFi-WiFi call on Viber should sound clear and with no interruptions.
Regarding Blackberry – it’s in fact in the works as we speak, and we hope to release an official announcement in the matter soon (however – still no exact release dates yet).
I don’t know where and how did you test Viber, but I assure you it works just fine on Wi-Fi and/or 3G. When I installed it a few days ago, I tested it talking with a friend who was driving a car during our conversation and (hence) was connected through 3G, I was on Wi-Fi in my flat. We talked for 20 minutes with no problems whatsoever, no call dropping, no quality issues, no latency issues – it just worked. I am in Serbia, she was in Croatia, so those are not what you would expect to be the highest speed networks/bandwidths in the world, although from what I hear/read, the 3G network quality (or at least signal reception on average) is better in Europe than in USA.
So, we tried Viber in what some probably would call “3rd world countries”, although they’re not, and it worked perfectly. Softwarewise, my friend always had problems with Skype on her Android (HTC Desire), choppy sound, Skype was useless for her on her smartphone, although I didn’t experience the same problems on my iPhone. Viber – no problems whatsoever, Android or iPhone. So, I would say that your review and experience is subjective at best, and nobody should take what you have written and experienced for granted. I can say, for what it’s worth, that my Viber experience was quite the opposite of yours. So Skype is dead for me, in the free call scenario. Push notifications? Skype formally has them, at least you can turn them on in the iPhone settings. Do they work? I don’t thinks so. Viber push notifications? Work flawlessly.
So I’ll take Viber over Skype any day.
Draza,
I too did my test in 3rd world country, Jakarta, Indonesia. However, the 3G there is pretty fast for a 3rd World country. By the time I posted this, Viber rep made a comment suggesting the recommended voice calls would be on WiFi. But I was mostly mobile, so I didn’t have the luxury of WiFi.
I also believe that Viber has up their service connection, making it better for 3G calls because for the past 2 weeks, it was better since my review. So, if Viber has made their service better, then they have listened to their customer and yaay for you, your friends, me and my friends.
Thanks for your feedback, and since the Viber has better voice calls, I havent used Skype since, so I cant comment about Skype voice quality for the moment. If it has degraded, well, thats too bad for skype.
Hi all,
Thanks for your feedback, we are definitly working hard on improving voice quality.
I just wanted to add that we are about to release a new Viber version within the next few weeks with significant voice quality improvements.
Skype voice quality for iPhone 4 is clearly better than Viber but just like what the article mentioned it drains the battery way too fast because Skype app needs to be in open to be able to receive calls,msgs.
I will add few things that is also good about Viber, it uses your phones contact lists and there’s an indicator if your contact also have Viber installed on their phone (I hope they will improve their network service)