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An all-in-one IM for your mobile device
Mundu IM will fulfil all your instant messaging needs—when you’re not in front of a PC, that is. It is an instant messenger that runs on mobile devices and smartphones running Palm and Windows Mobile. Mobile instant messengers might not be used widely in India, and Mundu IM is just one of many all-in-one messengers available. So we decided to try one: we used Mundu on an i-mate SP5m running Windows Mobile 5.
The interface is initially rather plain, but lightens up with colourful status icons similar to those you’d find on the full-blown versions of the messengers on a Desktop PC. The software supports six protocols—MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ, and Jabber, which should cover almost all the commonly-used ones. We faced trouble connecting to MSN and Yahoo!. Yahoo! wouldn’t show the contact list once connected, but messages freely came through. An online update quickly rectified this issue, but the MSN connection trouble persisted. Further updates will have to be made to fix this.
You get the standard features such as contact adding, removing, and blocking, and groups support. Chatting using a phone and a tiny keypad can be a pain, so Mundu has a feature called Quicktext, which lets you send text presets such as greetings. You even get a buzz feature like in most Desktop messengers, only here your mobile device vibrates!
E-mail alerts are available as well. We were able to get alerts for Gmail, and even a small preview of the mail, but Yahoo! Mail didn’t show up in the e-mail alerts. When you click on the mail preview, it opens up a browser taking you to your mail account.
Like we said earlier, there are many other all-in-one IMs available, and you’re bound to come across some that are costlier, and some that have a time-based subscription. Mundu IM will only require you to shell out a one-time fee of $11 (Rs 500), which is very good value for money. The only real cost you bear is of your mobile service provider’s GPRS charges.
RATINGS
Performance 3.5
Features 3.5
Ease of Use 3.5
Value for Money 4.5
Overall 3.5
Contact : Geodesic Information Systems Ltd
Phone : 022-28311849 / 28306837
E-mail : enquiry@mundu.com
Web site : http://messenger.mundu.com
Price : $11 (Rs 500)