BBM 7 beta update has been rolled out. It offers an exciting feature called BBM Voice that lets you do free Voice calls over Wi-Fi.

After creating some spur with the announcement of the release date of the much awaited OS BlackBerry 10, Research In Motion (RIM) rolled out an update to its much popular messaging service BBM. The company in an official press release said that the update, simply called BBM 7, is going to take the social networking experience to a whole new level by allowing BlackBerry owners to voice chat over a Wi-Fi connection for free. This really cool feature has been named BBM Voice.

This update can be seen as a preparation for the grand event going to take place next year when RIM will unveil their new OS BB 10. The new feature lets the user to instantly switch between text and voice call while in touch with a friend over BBM. The split-screen feature allows customers to talk and text at the same time. They can even send a picture, check e-mail and navigate to other apps while on chat. BBM 7 provides a visual indicator that shows when contacts are available for a voice call, that is, when they have entered a Wi-Fi enabled region and are ready to talk. The only point of concern is that there is no 3G/4G allowed, the Wi-Fi is the sole saviour here. We can hope to see this rectified soon.

BBM Voice can also be accessed via a wired headset, Bluetooth or the BlackBerry smartphone’s speakerphone. This is not the only upgrade that BBM 7 brings. Now, the BBM service is deeply integrated with a unique BlackBerry ID that backs up your profile, groups and contacts for easy switching to a new device, particularly a BlackBerry 10 smartphone that’s going to be released early next year.

The BBM 7 update is currently available in beta for phones running BB OS 6 or higher. Those having BlackBerry OS 5 may have to wait a little longer before they can also do free voice calls over Wi-Fi. The service can be downloaded by signing in at www.BlackBerry.com/betazone. And guess what, even that’s free. So head on to the link and tell us how you liked this feature.

Abhishek

Abhishek Mittal is an engineering student by profession and a creative writer by passion. Pursuing his B.E. in Electrical and Electronics from BITS Pilani Hyderabad, he is the Co-Editor of Gadgetronica and is deeply interested in the latest happenings of the gadget-world. Often targeted as an Apple fanboy, Abhishek closely follows the business strategies of all the tech-giants, and sometimes predict the future too!

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