I’m writing this small review because I found a new chat-application which I want to share with all of you. Using the Whatsapp messenger on Windows Phone frustrated me since I started using it (but I can’t be without 
) on my Nokia Lumia 800, and I think I found a nice replacement.
The first version of Whatsapp for Windows Phone was terrible. It was slow and was missing all extra features like emoticons, group-chat, …. Since there were already 2 or 3 updates the app is still not perfect. It still frustrates mee that the app is slow, every action you take is slow. This is not what I experience in all other apps, they are responding immediately. Then I found “Kik Messager” on the Marketplace, and installed it. My first experience was that it’s fast! BUT, as I expected, there were no other people in my contact list using the app. I found a person, using a iPhone 4, who wanted to test the application with me. His first experience….. IT’S FAST!! Also on the iPhone 4 it’s responding faster than Whatsapp. During our chats and photo exchange we really start liking the app, for both platforms. And I want to highlight some differences.
Message status: Using Whatsapp, you are always, looking at the checkmark next to you message, trying to figure out whats the status of a message, is it delivered/read/…. Kik Messenger made this all really clear. ‘S’ means sent, ‘D’ means delivered and ‘R’ means read. Easy! And it works great!
Emoticons: People like to sent you emoticons. I like to receive them, but using Whatsapp on Windows Phone you get really small, I think unicode, signs that should be the emoticons your friend sent you. And if I want to send one back, I’ve to copy and paste if from his message….. Kik Messager has really nice, easy to access, emoticons… Perfect! That’s all I need to say!
Enter key: Using whatsapp for a while I was always asking myself, why not using the Enter key as a ‘send’-button. On every update I checked the settings, to see if they included this functionality, but untill now it’s still not included. Kik Messenger already has this feature (I only checked Windows Phone), see the settings and you will find the option to send your message using the Enter key. To be honest, I have to get used to it again, but the enter-button is bigger, and more easy to access, so finally it will safe me some frustrations of mis-tapping the send-icon in the toolbar.
Design: I really like the design of Whatsapp, the black background makes it really nice on a Lumia. Also Kik Messenger is using this design in most of the app, except on the chat-screen. The chat-screen is using soft colors, they are nice and in perfect combination but maybe I would like to see an option to have the black background there too.
Some parts are still missing in Kik Messenger, and I don’t know if they will ever included. It’s not possible to send a recorded voice message, and it’s not possible to send a recorded video. For me these options are not really important, I barely use them on Whatsapp too.
The app is still free. I think this is because they need the people to start using it.
Site: Kik.com (Direct phone download: Phone detect)
I think I’ve made my point, I really like the app. Now I’ve to convince everyone to use it too