N900 Video Call with Skype

If you have graced my page before then odds are you know I love my N900. This past Wednesday Nokia released the PR 1.2 update for the N900 and one of the features they added was support for the front facing camera to make video calls. Video conferencing via services like Skype, Google Talk and Allstream Business Communications are a fantastic advancement in technology.

I made my first video call this evening on my N900 and it works quite well! The GUI for Skype video calls is fairly simple and looks as such:

The video feed fails to appear when I use the screen shot function built into the N900, but I marked the locations of where the feeds appear. In order to make a video call simply open the Skype contact and select "Video Call":

You can also start a video call from a normal Skype call by selecting it from the call's menu:

I would like to note that in order for the video call options to appear I had to first receive a video call on my N900. After this I had no trouble initiating a video call from my device.

The quality from the front camera isn't the best, but it is more than enough to do basic video calls with. I recorded a short video that displays a video call between my N900 and a laptop:

Video calls such as this are by far the way of the future! Hopefully we will see more devices follow in the N900's footsteps and start adding this functionality.

~Jeff Hoogland