Palringo gives the default IM a run for its money. It provides tight integration of all popular platforms as well as a stable environment for chatting on the go.
Palringo is free for use and already available on Android market.

To begin, Palringo supports nearly every messaging client available:

Google Talk
AIM
Facebook
Yahoo
MSN
ICQ
iChat
Jabber
and more



Supporting this many platforms alone makes the usefulness of Palringo outweigh any other IM app available. Setting up a Palringo account is easy and takes less than 5 minutes.

All services are integrated together with the list of contacts showing friends from all services in alphabetical order. My personal favorite is the Facebook integration. The Facebook chat is stable and reliable, providing something new to the Android Market. While AIM and Google Talk are great services, I have many contacts on Facebook that I simply do not have a screenname for. Palringo allows you to talk to your friends on your platform of choice.



The service itself is very reliable, working smoothly over the Edge network as well as at higher data speeds. Even when I do lose data coverage the service tries reconnecting and works in the background until a connection can be established. There were some connection hiccups, but these were the exception not the rule. I easily chatted with friends on multiple services at once while travelling on the bus around the city.

While chatting, Palringo informs you when a new message arrives via notification. A recent update allows for notification via sound, vibration, or LED blinking when the screen is off. This is essential and is one area future updates can provide greater flexibility for how the user wants to be notified.

Other features include the ability to give status updates based on location as well as approve or deny pending friend requests from the various services. Palringo allows the sending of images too. One unique feature is the group chats. This allows users to create a group which other Palringo users can join in for group chatting session. This can be useful, especially if you use the PC/Mac Palringo client along with your Android app.

Overall Palringo is a great alternative messaging app that deserves a look. It can stand on its own as your default IM app and provides greater functionality than any other IM app for Android so far.