Like Skype, Gizmo is a user-friendly VoIP, or internet telephony, service that is free between fellow users. The GizmoProject interface clean, clear and very intuitive to use. The contact list contains other Gizmo users you’ve added and can even scan your Outlook address book and determine if any are current Gizmo users. The voice quality is good, but like other VoIP services the quality of your call is influenced by your PC’s memory and your broadband connection. But, for the most part my sound quality was good.
For Gizmo to Gizmo calls it behaves pretty much like Skype, although it does lack video capabilities. It does offer premium options like Gizmo Call Out to call landlines and mobiles from your PC and Gizmo Call In so your PC can be called by regular phones. It offers a very reasonably priced 1-cent-per-minute, pay-as-you-go plan for calling domestic landline and mobile numbers from your PC and they also have very low rates for international calls. To accept calls to your PC from regular phones will cost you $3 a month to get a local number in your area code.
The Gizmo interface is intuitive to manage. The Home tab includes your account info, call history (including missed calls), and your Call Out balance. The Contact tab gives quick access to an IM client. In fact, GizmoProject project supports multiple IM platforms like AOL, MSN and soon to include Yahoo and Jabber too.There is a very useful add-on that allows you to record calls and lets you store them in WAV format. An automated warning announces that a call is being monitored. Gizmo can also send your phone an SMS alert when calls come in and will even forward incoming voice mails to your e-mail address. But if you're a GrandCentral user, you can include GizmoProject as one of your 6 phones to manage your incoming calls and let GrandCentral handle your voice-mail to email and SMS alerts.
It lacks the plug-ins Skype offers. If GizmoProject opened itself up to third party plug-in development and help foster that open environment, then I could see them being a real challege to Skype.