Entered CNET Catalog: 04/19/2005
SKU: CNETMSNMESSENGER7.0
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
Product summary
The good: Full-screen video chat; shared Web searches; easy to navigate.
The bad: Changes important Internet browser settings to MSN if you're not careful; hogs valuable desktop space.
The bottom line: A fun and feature-packed IM applet, MSN Messenger 7 is a great upgrade for version 6.2 users, but we prefer the less intrusive Yahoo Messenger 6 and ICQ 4.1.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 05/04/2005
Messenger took just five minutes to download and install in CNET's tests. With its default setup settings, MSN changed the Internet Explorer home page to MSN Home, made MSN Search the default search engine, and added the MSN Toolbar to IE. Unless you're paying attention and you uncheck the appropriate boxes to prevent these changes, Messenger will ride roughshod over your browser settings--a potential headache for inexperienced users.
Messenger 7 is free, as are its essential features: text, audio, or video chat; online gaming; radio; and file transfers. You'll have to pay, however, for add-ons that Yahoo Messenger offers at no charge, such as Muggins ($3 each)--virtual representations of yourself, akin to Yahoo's Avatars--and animated Emoticons ($1.50 for a six-pack). Many of these accessories are targeted at the grammar school crowd, and customization of MSN Messenger might get costly for parents.
So what's new? In addition to full-screen video chat that enables parties with Webcams to see larger-than-ever live images of each other, a Shared Search button in the conversation window allows you and a buddy to run joint Web queries. Unfortunately, the tiny chat window displays only three hits, so you'll need to click the More Results link to open the rest of the finds in a separate browser window. Office chatters will enjoy the claim that the new Messenger isn't blocked by corporate firewalls. You'll also get content updates if your buddies write MSN blogs, and you can see what songs friends are listening to on both Windows Media Player and iTunes. If you like to chat on the go, you can take version 7 on the road and use it to send text messages via your SMS-enabled mobile phone.
Messenger 7 is a breeze to use. Starting a chat session is easy, and the games and radio channel controls are accessible via the top toolbar. We could do without the left-side tabbed column of icons for eBay, Match.com, and other Microsoft business partners, and the floating MSN Today news window was equally unwelcome. For an IM applet, Messenger 7 hogs too much desktop space, although you can easily turn off these annoyances via the Tool/Options dialog box. Still, Messenger 7 is a first-rate IM app overall and an essential upgrade for its millions of existing users.
You can reach customer support, which is excellent for a free program, easily via the help menu. Microsoft responded to our e-mail queries within 24 hours.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10out of 10 user reviews
when will the world stop using this?
Pros: many people are using it
Cons: ugly, very intrusive, no security (your conversations are automaticaly saved on a plain text file)
out of 10 user reviews
The best instant messenger i've used
Pros: Great new upgrades! Video Conferencing, personal messages and syncs with wmp
Cons: some bugs once in awhile
out of 10 user reviews
Looking Good
Pros: Looks nice fun to use and works great
Cons: Cant think of any for now
out of 10 user reviews
Could have been much better and less buggy
Pros: full screen video (can't see why this feature has not been available earlier)
Cons: Does not work as well as advertised. Voice is better with Skype. Video is slower and hang (message: bandwith is not good enough). Lips does not synch at all (too slow for noticing). PC crashes
out of 10 user reviews
Great product...getting better all the time
Pros: added features easy to use, links to email
Cons: needs to inerface with yahoo and AIM
out of 10 user reviews
msn 7.0 is NO good
Pros: animated is neat
Cons: makes msn messenger run slower,and camera freezes up
out of 10 user reviews
Well done nice change
Pros: easy to use and install
Cons: sometimes takes time to get connected
out of 10 user reviews
It just rocks!
Pros: Many new features, looks nicer, fixed problems with previous versions.
Cons: It may overwhelm some new users.
out of 10 user reviews
I started to use Yahoo more....until this came out.
Pros: My Space, video conf, funky new features.
Cons: Yeah....the ads, and times they try to get you to pay for extras.
It new features, like "Winks" are fun, but the novelty will wear off on that quickly I think. Some new Smilies, and you can 'write' freehand now, but again...a novelty.
The biggest feature, and I have to say this puts it over the top, is the My Space. Free up load of photos (to a certain limit, but fairly generous), A Blog, song playlist, and some other features. What a great idea. I love it. It really puts MSN Messenger on the well rounded.
So far, no complaints really. The ads, yes, but geez....IT IS FREE!
Wondering what Yahoo will try to come out with next to try and sway me back to them...
My rating is a SOLID 8. Always room for improvement. Perhaps more multimedia in the future, add it to the My Space? Who knows, but I am sure it's coming.
out of 10 user reviews
Very Nice Upgrade
Pros: great video and much improved audio
Cons: still no MAC video or audio
