Here are all the problems I’ve encountered: - Can’t share files unless they’re in Google Drive (Google trying to limit you to using their products) - Videos are uploaded when you share them, which means it takes FOREVER. I’m so tired of this nonsensical app that I have to say something. Once again, I’m waiting a ridiculous amount of time for a friend’s video to upload in Google Chat so I can watch it.

If you’re hoping to do more with it, you should look elsewhere for a more thoughtfully designed, and scalable, communication method. If you’re only using the phone app and only for chatting with a limited number of friends socially, which is clearly the use case they have decided to laser focus on, you’ll be fine with it. The conversations are spaced relatively far apart and take up way too much screen real estate. The alphabetical sorting of conversations means hunting down the person you were just talking to. It’s completely unwieldy with more than 20 active conversations. I used Hangouts and now use Chat in a professional environment, for more casual short form comms, and it’s clear after 6 weeks of heavy use that Chat wasn’t designed for anything more than light usage. Google Chat is at its best on the mobile app, but if you’re using it regularly, across mobile and in the desktop chrome extension, you’ll quickly see the questionable choices made by the developers. Unfortunately, that’s about where the improvements end. That’s really nice and a feature we were hoping for coming from Hangouts. Google Chat added the ability to have rooms where specific topic threads can be created.

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