WebTalk

WebTalk -- WebTalk is Quarterdeck's answer to Internet Phone (IPhone). Like it and another of IPhone's competitors, Digiphone, WebTalk allows you to carry out real-time telephone-like conversations over the Internet and without a great sacrifice in audio quality. The savings in long-distance charges can really add up with any of these clients, and with the full-duplex capability of WebTalk and IPhone, the delay between sender and receiver is nearly negligible. Unfortunately, full duplex capability is currently restricted to a limited number of sound cards, including Gravis Ultrasound Max, Turtle Beach Monterey, Spectrum Office F/X, AcerMagic S23, Ensonic (Windows 95), Media Magic Telemetry 32, and Crystal. Users of half duplex sound cards can still make use of WebTalk; however, the delay between sender and receiver becomes much more noticeable (and annoying) in half duplex mode. WebTalk offers an interface and features similar to Internet Phone and even includes a few extras like diagnostics and statistics reports. WebTalk is substantially different in one area to IPhone -- whereas IPhone integrates an efficient and superior address book and phone server into the client, WebTalk users will first need to go through a web server in order to accomplish the same goal. Fortunately, this isn't too difficult a task because Quarterdeck's QMosaic web browser (v1.1) is also included with WebTalk. This duo of apps is a strong alternative to IPhone but currently falls short of IPhone's impressive service. One reason for this is IPhone's ease of use and efficiency, as illustrated above. Another is Internet Phone's audio quality, which is noticeably better than that of WebTalk. Still, this version of WebTalk is a very early beta release and is like to improve by vast margins when commercially released. Pros: The next killer-app? Real-time voice communication achieved on the 'net Cons: Lacks Internet Phone's overall ease of use, efficiency, and superior audio quality New: Improved connection utility, new splash screen and expiration date, bug fixes Version Reviewed: 1.0w Date of Review: 6/21/96 Reviewer: Forrest Stroud Date Entered 7/7/96