I was shortlisting applications to review today and thats when I realised that we haven't reviewed one of the coolest applications available on the symbian platform today. Yeah, the coolest! It goes by a small but very apt name, QIK but dont judge it by its short name, the feature set it offers are gargantuan. Let me not waste more words here and straightaway dwell into the review of qik on Nokia 5800.

Installation

Now, that Ovi store is online and functional everywhere, finding applications has become much easier indeed. I just opened Ovi store on my 5800 and checked the applications section and there it was right in the first page. In case you were wondering if this application will set you back by a few dollars; rest assured, this is a free application. So just head to Ovi store on your 5800s to download and install this application.

Its a pretty small installation file for the download and install procedure took me like 20-30s on my 5800 over wi-fi. Going by the swift download, this shouldn't burn a hole in your pocket if you decide to download this on a data plan.

Features

Well as I said before, Qik is a very apt name for this awesome application. It takes like 20s including signing up for a qik account to go streaming online. Yeah thats definitely quick, or should I say QIK! Check out this video below which I beamed live online for a few minutes as I was reviewing this application:

http://www.qik.com/video/1758095

Pardon the poorly lit shoot but I couldn't deck up my workdesk for this review! I realised later that there is an option to turn on the flash to shoot in low lit conditions.

How did I do it? Very simple, just signed up for a free qik account right from my 5800, then clicked on share button. Thats it and I was streaming live video to the world from my 5800. The link to your live stream will be http://qik.com/qik username. So now that you have set up your live stream, the next thing will be getting some audience to your stream. I just click on share button. As you can see in the screenshot below, you can share your stream over SMS, Ovi, twitter and youtube. Only SMS and Ovi were highlighted for me and I guess this is because my qik profile was not linked to my twitter and youtube profiles at the time of this review. I tried the SMS option and the way it works is it sends the link to your stream as a SMS. Do let us know what the other sharing options do.

Video quality

The above video was shot in 640 x 352 and there is an option to select the resolution of the video. One can even shoot in 176 x 144, 352 x 288 and 640 x 480  too. So the default resolution is the highest our Nokia 5800 camera can manage.  Other options are beaming your location (geo tagging) along with your video and shifting between front camera (the one used for video calls) and the 3.2 meg carl zeiss camera our 5800 boasts of.

So we see that qik is a feature packed application on 5800 and lets list out some pros and cons now.

Pros

1. Qik is quick to install and start streaming
2. Abundant customization options
3. Chat support with your audience

Cons

1. In qik website there is no embed code for your videos There is a an embed code in the "info" section (Thanks to Jassen for pointing this out)
2. There are no video editing options on saved videos in qik website

Verdict

I will repeat what I have previously said here. Qik is the coolest application on Nokia 5800 today. It makes live video streaming on internet so damn easy and simple that anyone who knows to operate a basic cellphone can start streaming live video from anywhere (provided they have a data plan). The customization options in the application fulfill all your streaming needs. I was so bowled over this application that I had to struggle to come up with some points for the cons. Infact I have no complaints with qik application on 5800 but I think qik website should start offering some of the services that I have listed in my cons list. However, considering that its a free service and application I am more than happy with the services offered today. I am so impressed with this application that I can only tell my fellow 5800 users that you are definitely missing something if you haven't installed qik on your 5800. Its exactly applications like these which make owning a symbian phone all the more fun. Very few applications do use the hardware features of a phone this beautifuly in an application.  Special thanks to the developer team of qik for bringing such a cool application to our devices.

P.S- For troubleshooting with applications on your 5800s, please check our forum here. Someone may just have the solution for you

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