Google Talk on Android is Getting Video Chat (But Only on the Nexus S for Now)

Android users will soon be able to video chat with Google Talk from their mobile device. Google today announced that video chat for Android is coming to compatible tablets and phones soon. Video chats will work over WiFi, 3G and 4G networks (assuming your carriers features a 4G signal, of course). The functionality will be very similar to video chat with Google Talk on the desktop: a video camera will appear next to contacts you can video chat with and you can start video calls with one click.

One nifty feature: text chats will be overlayed on top of the video, so you can read them without having to switch back and forth between the video and text mode.

This new feature is coming to Nexus S devices “in the next few weeks” as part of the roll-out of Android 2.3.4. Other Android 2.3 users will have to wait a bit longer, though. Google did not specify when this feature will be available on other phones. Sadly, this is a typical example of the fragmentation that Android users have to live with. Some devices are updated, some are not. Users are at the whim of the manufacturers and carriers when it comes to getting the latest and greatest features for their phones. The Nexus S, which will get this feature first, isn’t even geared so much towards consumers as developers.

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