REVIEW: Introduction to IM+ Mobile Instant Messenger

IM+ is the most popular IM solution for mobile devices today. It runs on a variety of platforms and it's offering support for the 6 most used IM protocols.

ShapeServices, the company behind IM+, sent us over many versions of their IM solution: for PocketPCs, UIQ 3.x devices, S60 3.x devices and J2ME Java. They also offer versions for MS Smartphone 2002 and later, UIQ and S60 2.x, Palm, i-Mode and Blackberry. Installation is very easy for all these platforms. We used .sis packages for our Symbian devices, .cab for PocketPC and a .jar for J2ME. Each package varied in size, usually between 600 and 1.2 MBs.

IM+ supports the MSN, Y!, ICQ, AIM, Jabber and GoogleTalk protocols. Each worked perfectly in our tests and the application even managed to read and transfer non-latin characters. There is the ability to view user's information, block a user, delete him/her and save your chats as history. Messages were delivered and received very fast, we did not notice any network interruption or delay.

In the chat windows ther is the ability to copy/paste on the smartphone editions, use smileys and have a time-stamp. Under some version there is even the ability to have more than dialog window open at the same time. You can sort your contacts via status, group or alphabetically. In the PocketPC version you can also activate a Today plugin to get your IM notifications.

Not all versions can transfer files between users. The PocketPC and Java applications could not do that, for example, but the Symbian versions can. On the same version you can also set IM+ to auto-start when the device boots up and it has voice-messaging support. We found the Symbian S60 version the most advanced version of all the ones we tested.

Stability was very good, with a small exception of the Java version. The j2me version still has bugs and it lags behind in good looks, functionality and usability. The java version does not support touchscreens either. We tested it with our Linux-based Motorola A780 phone (runs the same java and OS as the E680i) that has a QVGA touchscreen, and not only touchscreen wouldn't work, but the Menu was too long and it would collapse on itself. Overall it was usable, but far from ideal.

Overall, we found the IM+ to be the most strong solution in mobile IM today. Only Agile Messenger's solutions come close, but they don't have the range and support IM+ delivers. Especially if you are on a Symbian phone, it's well-worth spend!

Additionally, if you are interested in Skype, ShapeServices offer "IM+ for Skype" that enables Skype support on your Symbian phone, but you must have a SkypeOut support in order for this to work.

Rating: 8/10