Heh... you'd be fine with RTCOMM for chatting with MSN and Yahoo friends. (Unless you're a fan of invisible mode).

Pidgin allows for some more powerful options but it isn't really as integrated with os2008 as RTCOMM is. I have both installed but only find myself using the built in contacts/chat/internet call/etc any more.

So I'd say install them both and see what wins over time...

Pidgin is big and bloaty and not very well integrated. Why run a separate application when you have one built-in that doesn't take up valuable task-bar space all the time?

rtcomm is bundled with OS2008.

I use both. I use pidgin for signing in invisibly and seeing if it is worth having msn open, sending and recieving files and mmultti line input.

I use rtcomm for normal chatting as it is fast.. ii wish amsn was fast.

@general

To be fair, they both have an applet. And i cannot turn off my rtcomm one without an account disable.
Pidgin's one is quite useless imo.

Yes, it does.

I switched to RTCOMM for some time but I have now switched back to pidgin. There are two features on pidgin that are missing in RTCOMM and that bugged me enough to switch back. Pidgin shows me when the other person is typing, RTCOMM does not (If it does, I have not found a way to enable it). Pidgin shows a little cellphone icon next to contacts when they log in over cellphone, RTCOMM does not. I tend to use both of these features quite a bit.

I personally like rtcomm with the latest update. As others have said, it integrates well with the OS and allows you to manage a central list of contacts. I like how I am able to contact the same person via IM, email, or phone (grandcentral) in one place. No separate Pidgin contact lists to maintain or anything like that.

That's my two cents.

*shrugs* I like Pidgin because of its plugins. The ones I do use come in handy on the n800. Like auto correct which fixes common mispellings of words and you can have it setup to do whatever text replacements you want.

I prefer RTCOMM aswell, being able to have a central place to save emails and IM's is really big plus. I also found that pidgin would take up too much memory.

You guys are hilarious. That got me laughing.

I mainly like RTComm for the simple fact that, when I used Pidgin, I always forgot to start Pidgin after a reboot or whatever, and RTComm, since it is always running in the background, just signs into all my accounts automatically when I connect to the 'Net.

I've run both as well and Pidgin definately has more options and customisation to it but for overall ease of use RTCOMM wins hands down. I too would always forgot to start Pidgin on a start-up or reboot, and ocassionaly it would just die/quit.

I do wish we could send/receive files on RTCOMM via IM, I understand that aMSN has this option but seems abit beta/buggy still.