Say hello to WhatsApp video calls

With over a billion monthly active users, WhatsApp, in addition to its constant updates has added a new feature – video calls.

Like its last update which allows for tagging group members, there is not much publicity about this latest feature.

The update is not yet available on Google Play Store and only users on the WhatsApp Beta app can access it. On WhatsApp beta tester, sample users can test the newest development of a product before it is deployed onto a larger audience.

For users on the beta, the video call icon appears next to every contact on their list. However, if the other contact is not on the beta app, the video call manifests on the other end as a voice call.

In May, the video call was introduced to the WhatsApp beta app but, it was discontinued for unknown reasons. However, with this new release, there are indications that the video call will be a feature on the messaging app.

While there are evaluations for every new feature, it is quite different for the new WhatsApp video feature in the beta tester. Questions asked from the user requires a lot of details.

During a trial run of the video call feature, I found the video and audio clarity to be sub-optimal. WhatsApp has to rectify this if it hopes to compete favourably with the already existing video call-messaging apps.