At long last, Skype have released a beta of their Skype for Symbian client.

I have it installed on my Nokia E71 and it works well. So far I have only two issues with it: when I lose 3G reception (which happens frequently where I live), despite having a preferred access point defined in the software, the client prompts you to choose an alternate AP. Now, if this happens while your phone is in your pocket, you aren’t going to see this message, and you aren’t going to be online. If you happen to go back into an area with reception, the client neither clears the access point prompt nor reconnects. This needs to be fixed.

The second is that the vibrating alert doesn’t seem to work. If my E71 is set to use the general profile, a normal Skype sound is played upon receiving an instant message or rings for an incoming call. Switch your phone to silent (where the vibrating alert kicks in for SMS and incoming calls) Skype doesn’t trigger a vibrating alert.

Now that I’ve got the negatives out the way (it’s been a long day) the client is excellent. File transfers, properly respected privacy settings (finally!) and  most of the other basic features (minus video calling) of a desktop client. It makes Skype a viable solution for me once more when I am out of the house (the one thing the 3Skypephone did very well was Skype presence and calling). I gave up with Fring and Nimbuzz as they interfered with my privacy settings, setting my desktop client back to calls and messages from contacts only, and it was annoying to remember to check them each time.

I have used the Symbian Skype client via both 3G and Wifi and placed test calls, both with adequate call quality. I have conducted a few text chats and this works well enough. In theory I could take a photo and send it to a chat recipient whilst out and about (something I liked about Fring), or have them send you a Word document etc. A minor quibble is that while text chatting you just start typing to bring up the text entry box. The trouble is, that first character simply invokes the box, and isn’t entered into it, meaning that you have to double-type the first letter of the first word of a new chat message. Not the end of the world, but it’d be nice to see that smoothed out, so you can just start typing a response naturally.

I’ll be using it extensively over the next few days and I’ll keep an eye on things like battery life to see how quickly it drains if Skype is run full-time. As I type, I have had the client running for 6 hours, and 2 bars have gone from the fully charged battery indicator. In theory, if I don’t use the phone much, I could get 18 hours out of it. We shall see.

To conclude, this is good news for the millions of Symbian S60 users out there, especially those of us with unlimited or generous 3G data packages or access to Wifi. No more having to use Skype credit at mobile rates to receive calls (a very welcome bonus). All is good. Let’s hope that the beta program gives Skype lots of feedback (do use their  Skype for Symbian forum to let them know of any problems) and hopefully we’ll all end up with a more robust Skype solution with better battery performance.

Fingers crossed.