WeChat Review by Soham

Hi friends and to all my online lovers. Let me start with a small quote

"The smartphone revolution is under-hyped, more people have access to phones than access to running water. We've never had anything like this before since the beginning of the planet."
- by Marc Andreessen


Well I don't have to prove it right once more, as we all revel in our new found apps and newer OS versions in our everyday life. Mobiles, smartphones, tablets, trans-tablet, etc. are becoming our favourite device without which life would seem to be stagnant. The reason behind this is the utility they offer beyond portability.

Yes I am talking about the Avant-grade apps without which a smartphone is nothing but a small piece of brick.Apps do their bit in every way to make our life sociable, delightful, easy etc.
Today may be more than 30 percentage of apps are social networking apps. Hence to push another in the same consumer market one has to develop something which is beyond a killer app!!

After BBM, to me "Whatsapp" is the most hyped and most favourite chatting app with all stripes of sharing facilities. But shortly I came to know about a new app called "WeChat" with almost same but some added facilities. I though why not share about this app.

As I have android phone, I downloaded the app from google play. Downloading was smooth and got it installed without any hitch. I quickly launched the app which asked me to register either with your mobile number or with your Facebook profile. I chose the mobile number registration as I will automatically come to know if any of my friends in my contact list are also here or not. You can even log in with your facebook profile if you do not wish to make your mobile number public and this was the first “COOL” thing I liked about it.

I had contemplated the app to be more or less like Whatsapp, may be with some changed user interface as with the case with other similar kind of apps.But I was really astounded with the "COOL" features it has inside. Yes "WeChat" has totally re-invented the communication application and feature wise it is way beyond "Whatsapp".

You must be having scruples with my "WeChat-the-killer-app" vibe. But there won’t be any soon believe me!!There are a whole lot of good features with a bright default background interface.

First let me talk about the chatting features. Conversations have threaded views and you can group chat with friends.

The "COOL" factor: You will be able to share any applications beside photos, videos etc. All the communication features has been defined in a small bar, just tap and use it: Which is not like the case in Whatsapp.

Second: You can add photos in your defined album which your friends can see and comment on it.
The "COOL factor”: I never found this kind of facility in any chatting apps.

Third: The "look around" feature. Once you tap it, the app will search if any of your friends are nearby using your location data.
The "COOL factor”: I never found this kind of facility in any chatting apps.

Fourth: The “Shake”!! feature. :D IT IS AWESOME, BELIEVE ME!
Shake your phone and you will get to know about persons and new friends who are also shaking their phone at the same time. Last time when I did that, I met a friend from china!!
The "COOL factor”: I never found this kind of facility in any chatting apps.

Fifth: “Drift Bottle”. The idea is to seal your message inside a bottle, and throw it into the sea (Not the real sea, but a pool of messages).Someone may pick it up and become your next friend.
The "COOL factor”: I never found this kind of facility in any chatting apps!


WeChat gives more freedom to users to have new friends with the "Shaking" and "Drift Bottle" feature. I really appreciate this step as other chatting apps restrict users to communicate within their friends group.

Wechat has named and modelled all these features as different modules (Plugins) within the app which means that if you don't want a particular facility like "Drift Bottle" or "Moments" or "Video Calls" you can simply uninstall them. Thus you can modify the app the way you want to use it. Wechat has a cloud-based service to retrieve and backup your contact list and that too encrypted.Hence there is not fear for data loss.

The only thing which I don't like about it is that it does not have any option for deleting the account and it is still not popular in our peninsula .Because whenever I used the "Drift Bottle" and "Shake" app, I always met people from China and Indonesia. Otherwise I love this one. I also thought it to have changeable skins and fonts modification facilities. But it doesn't have any. May be in the coming version they will incorporate these functions.
I hope this app will have more users from Indian peninsula and become popular world-wide with some more COOL features .


Wechat works on iOS, Android and Symbian devices.You can download this app from wechatapp.com for free.

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Thanks.