The IT Nerd

NOTE: This app has been updated to version 3.0. Read the review here. 

Frequent readers of my blog will recall that I did a In Depth article on RingCredible who make a VoIP application for  iOS, Android, Blackberry, and forWindows. One of their chief selling points is that they offer cheaper long distance calls than any telco and cheaper than Skype as well. Another selling point is that they are focused purely on long distance via VoIP rather than being like Skype by doing things like peer-to-peer calling and video calling. The question is, does it deliver? To find out, I downloaded the iOS version of the app from the app store which is free to do.

Setting up the app was easy as it was wizard driven. The only thing that stood out was the fact that you would be sent a registration code via text message. The app said the code would be sent in 60 seconds via SMS. But in reality, it took 7 minutes. In fact, I thought that it wasn’t going to arrive so I did the wizard twice. I eventually got two codes and the second one worked for me (presumably the first one was deactivated when I sent the request to get the second one). A minor glitch. But I thought it was worth mentioning.

Now once you’re set up, using it is just like using any other phone. Just dial the number and go. You can make calls over 3G/4G (expensive if you don’t have a good data plan) or over WiFi (much cheaper). My wife used it to call a friend of hers in Maryland (US) from Toronto (Canada). Now when she went to the extremes of our WiFi coverage, my wife’s friend reported that her voice faded a bit and my wife reported that her voice faded a bit and the call cut in and out. But the call did not drop. It also improved when my wife went into an area of our condo that had better signal strength. The fact that the call did not drop was impressive as another VoIP product that I use on a regular basis was not nearly as resilient in similar conditions. As for the audio quality, my wife reported the call quality was good on both ends. That’s important for any VoIP app as you don’t want it to be any different than a landline phone call.

A interesting touch is that the person that you’re calling sees your mobile number on their call display. I can see how that would be a plus for some people. A not so interesting quirk is the fact that when it reports how much money you’ve spent, it shows it in Euros (Not a surprise seeing as RingCredible is a Dutch company). Not only that, but when I did the math on what the test call cost in US dollars (more on the costs in a second) based on the posted rates on their website, it matched the numbers that were displayed in Euros inside the app. That is a bit of a problem as Euros should be less than US dollars at the current exchange rates. They may want to look at fixing that and at making the currency selectable while they’re at it for bonus points.

How about costs as that’s the main reason to use a VoIP app over traditional landline calls? The per minute rate to the US was $0.01 a minute with a $0.07 connection fee. In the case of the test call that my wife made, she talked for 1 hour, 10 minutes and 34 seconds and it cost $0.78. To compare this, I went to Skype’s website and found a pay as you go rate of $0.027 a minute with a connection fee of $0.069. That works out to $1.98 for the same length of call. RingCredible comes out ahead in this department.

The bottom line? RingCredible for iOS is a simple to use VoIP app that has good audio quality and lives up to the promise of cheap long distance calling. Not convinced? The company offers you a 50 cent calling credit when you sign up, which is good for up to 15 minutes of calls on average to give it a try for yourself. You can’t go wrong with that.

This entry was posted on June 3, 2013 at 6:17 am and is filed under Products with tags RingCredible, VOIP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.