Gmail’s voice video chat allowed users to call each other as long as they were both at their computers at the same time. Not any longer. Now you can call anyone’s phone directly from Gmail.
Calls to US and Canada will be free through the rest of the year (not sure if it will increase later). Other international calls are fairly cheap, some as little as $0.02 a minute.
How To Make Calls
- Make sure you have Voice and Video Chat installed
- Login to your Gmail account (sorry Apps users, it’s not available yet)
- Expand Chat window and click Call Phone
- Dial number on Keypad
If you have a Google Voice phone number, calls made from Gmail will display this number as the outbound caller ID. And if you decide to, you can receive calls made to this number right inside Gmail (see instructions).
If you are not seeing the label Call Phone in your chat window, be patient as this roll-out is happening over the next few days. If you are an Apps user or an international Gmail user, this feature will not be available for some time. Google has not commented on how soon though.
{Google}
I just tried this out last night with a headset I had- I was told that I sounded loud and clear, and I was told I sounded like the voice of God, haha! Score another one for Google!