I had signed up for Google Voice a week or so ago and I got an email today saying that I was invited to test it out. So, here is a somewhat detailed review of it. Keep in mind that it is still in testing phase :).
How does it work?
Google lets you choose a phone number for your Google Voice account. It will, then, ask you for your phone number. You can give it a number of your mobile/cell phone or your home phone. Whenever someone calls your Google voice phone number, you home phone or cell phone will ring (depending on what phone number you gave Google when signing up).
You can have more than one phone ring when your Google Voice number is called. And, you have filter calls. For example, you can have your cell phone ring if your business clients call and have your home phone ring if your friends call. This can be used to prioritize your phone calls.
How do you place calls you ask? You can login to your Google Voice account from your browser and click on place call button. It will ask you for the phone number you wish to call and which phone it should ring (your home phone or any other phones you have added). It will, then, call you on the phone you specify, then it will call the other person and connect you both.
If you wish to access it from your phone (make phone calls, send SMS, etc), Google has made mobile apps for Android and Blackberry. They also made an app for iPhone but Apple rejected it. Google also has a mobile version of Google voice website, so you can always login to your account through your web browser.
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The features:
– ListenIn – You can listen to your friends leaving your a voicemail. You don’t have to wait will they are done recording it.
– Record calls – This, I think, is a great feature. You can record your calls whenever you want. It can be at the start of a conversation or in the middle. Press 4 to start recording and press 4 again to stop recording.
– Switch phones – If you are talking on your mobile phone and the voice quality is bad, you can hit * on your mobile phone and all other phones you added to your voice account will start ringing. You can, then, pick up the phone with best reception and start talking again without anyone noticing ;).
You can also make international calls. And, Google has very cheap rates. It would have been good to have unlimited international calls for a flat rate (like MetroPCS does) but it still is better than most international calling plans out there.
It sounds too good to be true
Depending upon how important your privacy is to you, it might be. I read Google’s privacy policy. It states that even after you have terminated your account, your phone calls, voicemails, SMS, etc will remain on Google’s backup systems. I don’t know if other phone carriers that (I should probably read their privacy policy and find out – it’s good to know) but yeah. They don’t say whether your voicemails, etc will be deleted permanently if you were to delete them.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. Gmail does the same thing. Your emails are never physically deleted from their servers. They are just marked as deleted so you don’t see them anymore.
Visit these links for more information:
http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115037
http://www.google.com/googlevoice/legal-notices.html
http://www.google.com/googlevoice/privacy-policy.html
http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=154724
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