I really hope they implement video calling in the near future, it will really put the n800 camera into good use. Anyone know if this is a possibility?

Well, sure it's a possibility. The question is more one of probability. I think it will come, eventually.

The other day I showed Skype on my N800 to my brother. And then I asked him if I could use his Treo650 with Sprint's 3G data to tether to it and try Skype over it (never did this before). We did it in 1 min. I was talking on N800, he on my PC in another room. The voice quality was ok, very little lag. Totally usable.

When we were done he asks me, "so what's the point, why can't I just talk on my cell phone?". I didn't respond, but just waited couple of seconds for that "ahhh!".

And I'd love for someone to explain to me what that "ahhh!" is for the mass market...

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

To put in context, we are Europeans with strong ties to the old country, living in the US. So, in my anecdote, the ahhh was the realization that by using N800 tethered to the phone, one could talk to anyone on the planet through Skype for free, without being close to a PC, WiFi spot or anything really. That is pretty powerful setup.

Sure, you could do that with Gizmo or SIP or whatever (if that's what you were alluding to), but as cwichura very eloquently explained in his post #47 Skype just works. And as I've said before, outside of US people don't really do SIP, they do Skype.

Yeah, and I appreciate that Skype just works. And it was a fun product when I used it a couple of years ago.

I'm just surprised that the consumer market is really *that* big for people who want to talk to each other internationally.

But then I'm more of an email guy anyway :-)

The impression I'm getting in this thread, and that I always have gotten about Skype is that it is a much bigger deal internationaly than it is in the states. Whenever I hear anyone talking about it, its usually blah de blah I can talk to whoever in brazil for really cheap, blah blah. So anyone outside the states probably has more people who also have Skype to talk to with it, and it could be really useful for anyone who hops around countries. But for those of us in the states who don't really have many people to talk to who arn't in the states, including me, Skype doesn't seem that wonderful. If the calls to landlines were free, I'd be interested. I'm younger, and a lot of my friends are also younger, and the trend amoung the college age these days seems to be a total abandonment of landlines, and almost total reliance on cellphones. Most of my friends are on Cingular/AT&T, as am I, which means talking to them and sending sms's to them is free for me, outside the costs of my plan anyway, but considering that I'd have to atleast have a cell and a dataplan anyway to use Skype from anywhere on an internet tablet, I can't see myself saving much from that route, or atleast not enough to kill the convienence of a cell. And no, not having a cell and only being able to make and recieve calls when I'm by a hotspot isn't really an option

I completely agree with this. This is in large part due to the way phone services are charged in the States vs. most of the rest of the world. And it's why Skype has had such a hard time with their US adoption rate, despite promotions like the "free calling to US/Canadian numbers".

One of the main differences is that in the US, calls typically are not metered. For land lines, calls within your local area usually have a connect charge, but no per-minute charge after that. And the cellular plans are based on minutes -- you buy a package with 500/100/2000/whatever minutes, and you don't pay charges for connecting a call or "per-minute" call charges (unless calling internationally) -- you only use up "airtime minutes". Outside the US, pretty much everything is metered, even local land line calls. So VoIP services like Skype can be (much?) cheaper than either land line or cellular calls. Especially when you do VoIP-to-VoIP calls that are entirely free.

People in the US at least have some awareness to Skype now, but I suspect if you asked the random person on the street here, they'd answer Vonage as much/more than they would Skype. That's if they have even heard of VoIP. There just isn't the same economical drive in the US to use VoIP as there is elsewhere, due to the way phone services are charged. Before I started doing lots of international travel, I never really cared about VoIP, either.

It's not just the (insular ;-)) US. I'm in the UK and don't know of anyone regularly using Skype. Yes, a load of people used it when it first came out for the novelty; and I've heard of people using it for international calls occasionally, but most of the time most of the people I want to talk to are within 40 miles of my current location :-)