Google Duo is the closest thing we have on Android to iOS’ unbeatable FaceTime.
You see, as data becomes more affordable and network coverage improves translating to faster internet speeds, more and more users become comfortable with the idea of making video calls. The only problem is that the experience, unlike on iOS, is not guaranteed on Android. At least that used to be the case before Google introduced Duo. Sure, Hangouts was cool and all but it never for a moment felt as user-centred as Duo is.
Yet, for all its shortcomings, at least Hangouts was cross-platform. Duo has been pretty much limited to mobile. In fact, to be more accurate, smartphones. That’s because it’s never worked on tablets because Google hadn’t made it to do so.
That changes today.
The few among us that are still holding on to tablets (do you really need one?) can from today start calling friends and family and receiving calls from their tablets.
Is Google Duo worth it? According to me, yes. Every bit. That was the case when I reviewed it 2 years ago, it remains the case today when the app has gotten even better.
Sure, you can use other apps and services like Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger, which all have video calling features but none feels as good as Duo. Google Duo is easy to use, mobile-centred (this also works against it), offers high quality calls and heck, when it figures that you’re on a spotty connection, it will just switch your video call to a voice call and will even double up as a voice calling app since the other option that used to be there, the horrible Google Allo, is dead. So, yeah, go grab it.
