I acquired a Google Voice account roughly a month or so ago.  I was giddy with excitement and wanted to wait some time before I wrote a proper review.  Well after using it for a while I think it's time to write one.

Google Voice (GV) is essentially Gmail for your phone.  Google hands you a new phone number of your choice and away you go.  Let's get something straight from the beginning, GV is NOT a voip program.  There are ways to get a voip numbers associated with GV, and although I haven't done this yet, I hear that it is rather simple.  The initial setup was fairly quick.  I logged into my GV account, was prompted to pick a phone number, and then at least one pre existing phone number to associate with the new one I picked from GV.  I only have my cell phone at this time so it is the only number associated.

I immediately got to using GV and the Android GV app.  I highly recommend going and watching Ron's review of the app on App Judgement.  He has a fairly extensive review that can be watched in about 5-6 minutes.  I really liked how it didn't sound any different than my regular line.  Anyone I talked to I asked if they noticed any difference from the new number.  I had heard rumors that there was some lag in conversation and thankfully everyone I polled told me they didn't notice anything different.  There are some neat features that you can use while talking with Google Voice, chiefly that you can record calls.  During a call you hit 4 on your key pad and it is announced that the call is now being recorded.  This most likely gets around most laws on recording phone calls, since in a majority of states it is illegal without consent or knowledge for the person you are talking with.  I think this would be a useful feature that is out of the ordinary, the ordinary being conference calls and the like, that I could see using if I needed to interview someone and wanted to listen to the call later.

Voicemail and Texts

GV does a great job of being that one stop shop for all of your contacts, voicemails, and text messages.  Everything looks very similar to Gmail in layout.

As you can see I have a couple voicemails that are sitting out there, ones I have listened to and read.  It's nice to see that you can associate pictures with everyone through your contacts, the same contacts that get used for Gmail.  As you can see I picked a decent transcribe and one that frankly I can't remember what the call was about.  This seems to go back and forth with GV as sometimes a transcribe can go just fine and then I get things like a Green Manager as Dave suggests Majendro having.  Even the call I got from Steve wasn't the greatest.  Most of it isn't too bad, but it's clear that nobody's canceling is suppose to be noise canceling.

I also have a transcript from another message my friend Dave left asking me if I wanted to go to the Beards Answer Fest.  I'm still trying to figure out what goes on at this festival.  Are Beards the answer and do we have to have a festival for them?  I can understand why Dave may need to go, he doesn't have a beard.  Also I had one voicemail a roommate left trying to through off the transcript to see what happened.  I was given a message that read No Transcript.  That's what happens when you try to fool the system I guess.

Another neat voicemail feature is that you can setup additional voicemail greetings.  Currently if one of my roommates calls me he's greeted by a message letting him know that I can't take his call since I am too busy plotting his demise.

And now for Texts:

Text Messages work pretty much how you would think they do.  There are two major differences:

1.    You can get send/receive txts for free as long as you have an internet connection.

2.    MMS DO NOT WORK!!!

As one might figure, number 2 is a biggie.  You may be wondering right now, what does GV do with MMS messages?  Well GV has made is simple for themselves, nothing happens.  That's right nothing.  They don't go anywhere or maybe they do, WE DON'T KNOW!  If someone sends you a picture of G.I Joe figures you're not going to receive it.  Said person will not receive anything saying it wasn't sent.  There is no option to forward these to your old number even.  GV decides to ignore the problem at the moment.  Hey I have an idea, how about you turn them into an email and forward them that way?  I heard that works for other people, but even they know they're getting MMS at some point.  As you may have read, I'm not at all bitter about this.

Settings

The settings in GV are quite robust.  As you can see from the above screenshot you can do lots of things with incoming calls.  Don't want people just calling you and actually getting to talk to the all powerful wizard?  Easy just turn on Screening with the appropriate options.  When the call comes in, you'll know who it is and have the option to not only send them to voicemail, but to listen to them as they leave the message.  I thought this was a pretty awesome feature, but also slightly creepy.

Even though there are many settings Google thankfully keeps them all relatively simple.  For instance here is the SMS and Voicemail setup:

As you would assume this is one of the places you can setup your voicemail greetings, notifications (what email address and if you want a SMS sent of the transcript), Voicemail PIN, and lastly the ever so fantastic feature of Voicemail Transcripts.

Something else I like, but haven't had the chance to dig into just yet is Groups.

With these you can edit what happens when someone calls.  Some of the features are; what phones to forward members of this group to, what greeting, and call presentation.  The call presentation is how the call is presented to you when you answer the call.  For my Coworkers group for example I have it set to announce their name and give me answer options.  As I mentioned earlier you can change their greeting.  This could come in handy for when you're out of the office and want to get the point across that you won't be answering your phone.

Lastly I really like the option that you can setup Widgets for you GV number.  This will allow you to setup a link for someone to call you from any webpage.  You can edit the options per widget, to say for instance go straight to voicemail. 

Conclusion

There of course are many more things that I could show you, but most of them are self explanatory, such as contacts or missed calls.  What I'd like to mention is the fact that I have not replaced my number with GV, not yet anyways.  The ultimate deal breaker for me was no MMS.  I have no problems telling people, ?call me at my new number because I won't answer the old one.?  I just don't want to add, ?unless you're sending a picture to me, then use the old one.?  I receive just enough MMS messages that this could be annoying for myself and everyone else.  It's confusing enough to get people to use a new number, let alone to add stipulations for contacting you with additional numbers.

Right now I have GV setup to essentially be a Visual VM for me.  This is nice as I can still take advantage of the hilarious transcripts that GV creates from people who call and leave messages.  I am lying in wait for MMS and as soon as this feature hits, I'm making the jump and not looking back.  If MMS is not something that is a big deal by all means dive in.  The other thing that is really worth mentioning is anyone on T-Mobile with myFaves.  You're going to have to change your plan to use everything legally.  You're GV number is not going to dial out normally making myFaves useless.  Some have actually setup their GV number as a Favorite, but it could easily be argued by T-Mobile that this voids your contract as it is a number that allows for over 500 other phone numbers to be filtered through it.

Also I've added a Google Voice Widget.  Feel free to give me a call and let me know what you thought of the article!

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