WhatsApp Call consumes a lot of MB, So which voice calling app uses the least data per minute?

Free voice call apps, which use data to place calls, can offer a cheaper way to keep in contact with friends abroad and come to the rescue when you’ve used up your monthly minute quota. However, with multi-gigabyte data plans still often coming at a premium price, the busiest chatters out there could soon eat into their monthly allowance using voice over data calls.

The results

We can instantly spot a huge difference between the leanest and the heaviest data consuming applications. Interestingly, many of the most well-known apps, such as Hangouts, Skype and WhatsApp, consume by far the most data, while KakaoTalk, Nimbuzz and Line all consume comparatively smaller amounts of data. Facebook Messenger also makes a bit of a surprise appearance as one of the most data efficient ways of placing a voice call.

Perhaps a little worryingly for Skype users, the app consumes over 2.7 times the amount of data per minute than the most economical apps. WhatsApp consumers 2.3 times the data of KakaoTalk, while Hangounts and Tango consume around twice the data each minute. Over the course of an hour’s worth of calls, the difference between Skype and KakaoTalk works out to around 33.4MB, which might be a point worth considering if you’re on a more limited data plan and like to talk.

Magic Jack and Viber both consume a little more data than others, but are still much economical choices than the more established apps. These may be the best choice if you’re looking for a balance between call quality and data usage.

To be fair to the big brands, we do know that Skype implements a rather intelligent codec that is capable of various sample and bit rates. We went back to see if switching down to a 3G network, with more limited bandwidth, would make any difference to the data consumed, but the results came back well within the margin for error. We can conclude that a 3G connection is more than good enough for the best voice call quality that Skype and the other apps have to offer on Android, so you’ll probably always find that these apps consume around this amount of data, regardless of a 3G, 4G or WiFi connection type.

While the big companies may be able to spend some cash on extra bandwidth and servers, Kakao, Nimbuzz and Line most likely make use of a lower quality communication to save on expensive server bandwidth, which has the added benefit of saving us data usage too.

Source

The New BlackBerry Passport Shown off in a video!

The BlackBerry Passport will soon hit retail shelves, but Carphone Warehouse has jumped the gun and posted a video hands-on of the device. The video shows the BlackBerry Passport in detail and shows off its key features, some of which haven’t been revealed by the company before.

As you’d expect the keyboard is excellent on the Passport. It also doubles as a touchpad and supports gestures. A swipe to the left deletes a word, while up and down swiping scrolls a web page.

The phone is quite tough as well, thanks to its stainless steel frame. There’s also a special shortcut button to the BlackBerry Assistant on the right side of the phone. You can use it to set reminders and search the web, among more.

While the video has since been removed from the retailer’s YouTube channel, a copy has been uploaded, which you can check out below.

The new BlackBerry Passport is edges closer to release!

There’s a fair amount of anticipation among BlackBerry device enthusiasts for the upcoming BlackBerry Passport. We’ve already seen this device several times, and now the BlackBerry Passport has edged a step closer to release.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen officially revealed the Passport back in June and further to this we saw the phone pictured in a white color option. It has a rather unusual wide form factor that we weren’t too sure about at first, the phone looked more stylish than we’d initially thought.

Before the launch of a new smartphone to the market the device has to pass through various regulatory procedures, and last week a device thought to be the BlackBerry Passport appeared at the FCC. Now the phone has received GCF Certification too, so all is looking promising for the rumored September release.

The phone is thought to have a Snapdragon 800 processor, a square 4.5-inch display with resolution of 1440 x 1440, 3GB of RAM, and a 3450 mAh battery, and will release running BlackBerry 10.3, a very appealing lineup of specs. It also has a new-look physical QWERTY keyboard and it’s targeted at business users, although it could well appeal to non-enterprise users too.

There’s no BlackBerry Passport release date available yet, but it’s interesting to know that the FCC confidentiality agreement expires on September 12th, which perhaps gives us a hint. If you’re interested in this upcoming device you can already register your interest in it at BlackBerry here.

Do you like what you’ve seen and heard so far about the BlackBerry Passport smartphone? Will you be pre-ordering this handset when pre-orders open?

BlackBerry fires CEO Thorsten Heins, scraps buyout plan!

As a long-time competitor of, and what many believe to be a casualty of, the iPhone, we’ve been keeping a close eye on BlackBerry’s situation over the past several months. The last we heard, the company had agreed to sell itself to Fairfax Financial Holdings for $4.7 billion.

But apparently that’s no longer the plan. In a bit of a surprise move, BlackBerry announced this morning that it has given up on its effort to sell itself to a large investor, and that it will be replacing Thorsten Heins with former Sybase chief John Chen as interim CEO…

The news came in the form of a press release, where BlackBerry announced that rather than bid for it, Fairfax Financial will lead a group of investors that will pour more than $1 billion into the battered Waterloo-based company. The money will come in the form of a debt sale.

From the press release:

“BlackBerry (Nasdaq: BBRY; TSX: BB), a world leader in the mobile communications market, today announced that it has entered into an agreement pursuant to which Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (“Fairfax”) and other institutional investors (collectively, the “Purchasers”) will invest in BlackBerry through a U.S. $1 billion private placement of convertible debentures.  Fairfax has agreed to acquire U.S.$250 million principal amount of the Debentures.  The transaction is expected to be completed within the next two weeks.”

BlackBerry says that today’s announcement marks the conclusion of the review of strategic alternatives it announced on August 12, 2013. It’s confident that an immediate cash injection is the best route for the company to take, and says it’s already begun making necessary changes.

Here’s more on the executive shuffle:

“Upon the closing of the transaction, John S. Chen will be appointed Executive Chair of BlackBerry’s Board of Directors and, in that role, will be responsible for the strategic direction, strategic relationships and organizational goals of BlackBerry.  Prem Watsa, Chairman and CEO of Fairfax, will be appointed Lead Director and Chair of the Compensation, Nomination and Governance Committee and Thorsten Heins and David Kerr intend to resign from the Board at closing.

In addition, Mr. Heins will step down as Chief Executive Officer at closing and Mr. Chen will serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer pending completion of a search for a new Chief Executive Officer.”

In addition to ceding the CEO post, Heins will step down from the board of directors, as will director David Kerr. Heins was hired as BlackBerry’s chief executive following the exit of its then co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie—well after the company began its downward spiral.

But Heins hasn’t done much, if anything, to slow the bleeding. BlackBerry announced back in September that it would be writing off nearly $1 billion in unsold smartphones and cutting 40% of its workforce. That’s over 4,500 layoffs, one of the largest ever for a Canadian company.

Putting all of that behind us, though, it will be interesting to see what John Chen and the new board members can do. I think it’s admirable that they’re going to try to rebuild (although I’m not sure if they really had a choice or not), instead of taking the easy way out like Palm.

BBM: An Incredible First Week on Android and iPhone, 20 million new subscibers!

In a world filled with free communication apps like Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook (and Messenger), Google Hangouts and iMessage, BlackBerry Messenger was able to carve a serious user base for itself it just a week.

Since the BBM rollout on iOS and Android resumed 7 days ago, BBM has gathered 20 million new users.

That’s active users and not just downloads and is a serious step up from the 5 million in the opening 8 hours of up time.

BlackBerry has also announced that it has removed the waiting in line on iOS and Android and users can now activate BBM right away.

BBM is regarded as a top tier communication tool. It features a more secure way of sharing your information (not everyone that has your mobile number can see your information), as well as delivered and read statuses.