APPMESS REVIEW: DOWNLOAD CHARGE FOR FREE

Charge is a simple cloud messenger app focused on chatting and calls. The app came out on February 10, 2014.

For a year and a half, Charge has been maintaining its place in the messenger market. Our Charge review will tell you about the major advantages this IM service offers.

Technical abilities of Charge

• Charge messaging app is available for download on iOS and Android platforms. A web-version is also available.
• When installing Charge, a user has to enter his phone number to receive a confirmation code. This code will be automatically sent with an SMS. Once the user enters a code, the app suggests that he indicates his user name that can be different from the actual name.

• After you sign up in Charge, it will request a permission to import contacts from the user’s mobile device book. It takes several seconds.
• To find new friends, you can use the universal search field. There you enter the user name you are looking for or his mobile number.
• Charge has focused its attention on two major tasks: text messaging and voice calls. So far, the app does not allow sending a voice message or conduct a video call. Not yet.
• To start a chat, a user must tap an icon of a contact in the contact list and start typing a message. You can send an SMS or e-mail to invite the contacts, who do not have the messaging app installed.
• The app supports photo, video and gif sharing. Multimedia files can be uploaded either from the phone Gallery or by taking an instant photo by the device’s camera.
• The gif support was built in for those who are lazy: a text-bot has been designed specifically for that. You can just type a word or phrase and the bot will individually find an animated file. This functionality compensates for the lack of stickers in the app.
• To create a group chat, just return to the contact list and start typing the names of the participating contacts in the search field. However, there is a certain inconvenience (in the Android version): you have to search and add each participant individually. You cannot choose several users at once from the general list. Charge does not allow you to add a new contact to the group chat, which has already been created, without exiting this particular chat. You can rename every group chat by tapping the Information icon.
• You can easily share your location – the app supports Google Maps.
• The statuses of messages will let you know whether the message has been read by the recipient or not.
• You can add links to your messages but so far, you cannot preview them.
• You can give a free call to a friend without leaving the chat. If this contact does not have Charge installed, the app will offer you to make a call through other applications or via a standard mobile operator service.
• Tariffs for calls to mobile numbers are the same as those set by mobile operators or by third-party apps.
• You can disable notifications in the app or change them for sounds, depending on your mood. You can temporarily switch off alerts for a selected chat by enabling the Snooze option.
• Charge is a cross-platform app and it easily synchronises with all necessary gadgets. The messaging app uses TLS encryption protocol and chat history is stored in the cloud.

Events around the messaging app

The initial name of the messenger was Bolt but on April 7, 2015, it was renamed as Charge. This change in the branding policy at the very start of the promotion campaign was caused by Instagram rolling out a new service of photo exchange, also called Bolt.

The co-founder of Charge Andrew Benton wrote an open letter to Instagram asking them to rename the service, since back then it was only being tested. Unfortunately, the Facebook family turned the request down. The media, just as the official blog of Charge, does not disclose any details of the rebranding contract.

Hopefully, this stressful situation helped Charge team to buckle, get stronger and learn to handle any challenges that will one way or another arise along the path of their new product.

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