Google Meet Review

Video conferencing has become new normal nowadays, most of the employees are working from home and meeting online to collaborate. Google made its web conferencing platform ‘Google Meet’, free during the pandemic, so small to large, every business can get benefit out of it.

Platform supported

Google Meet is available for Android, iOS, and as a Chrome extension. If you don’t want to download, it supports the web as well. It comes inbuilt with your Gmail as like Hangout. Just click on the Start or Join the meeting to set up a virtual conference or to join a call using the platform.

User interface

As I mentioned above, it comes inbuilt to your Gmail account, so let begin with that and later on, we will discover its app. When you are logged in to your Gmail, you can see a small window called ‘Meet’ just below the Inbox, Sent, etc. options.

Set-up a meeting

Click on ‘Start a meeting’ if you want to host or ‘Join a meeting’ when you are joining a meeting hosted by others. When you will click on any one of them, a new window will appear with desired options.

When you will click on start a meeting, the window will appear, showing your camera and mic status. On the right, you can see two buttons – Join Now and Present. Click on Join now to enter into your meeting room. You will get a sharable link for others, people can join your meeting using this link. Or you can add your colleagues directly by clicking on “Add people”.

You can see all the controls on the bottom pane, from left, Meeting Details, mic, end call, camera, turn on captions, present now and three dots where you can see multiple other options and setting. On the top right corner, it has three options – show everyone, Chat with everyone, and You.

Join a meeting

If you have a link to join the meeting, you can directly join the conference by clicking on it. Or click on ‘Join a meeting’ and provide meeting code.

You can also join or host a meeting by visiting https://apps.google.com/meet/.

The same two buttons are there, you can click to join or host. There is no difference in the UI.

The Mobile App

Google Meet app is available on both, iOS and Android, and the UI is as simple as its web interface. When you open the app, you get the same two options to join or host a meeting. When you enter into the meeting room, meeting URL will appear to share with others.

All the controls are added on the top and bottom with three dots that take you to other settings.

Overall, Google Meet has an intuitive interface, anyone can use the app without any help. It has clean, and minimal UI, and equipped with clearly labelled commands.

Features

Google Meet lets you set up a video conference with up to 250 participants in just a few clicks. The platform is optimized for Android and iOS. The platform boasts a range of useful video chat features including text-based chat, and file and image-sharing capabilities.
The platform seamlessly synchronizes with G Suite for enhanced connectivity and collaboration. The platform also enables you to integrate Google Meet with select external platforms via Google's Pexip Infinity Platform.

Performance

With a clean and minimal interface, Google Meet can easily handle conferences with a large number of participants. Call quality is quite clear, however, all depends on your connectivity. You can share a particular application, doc, PPT, etc. or the entire screen.

The mobile app offers in-call features with a simple tap or swipe, it works smoothly, however, takes a little more time to send files or text-based information.

The platform is equipped with a robust mix of security features, including counter-abuse initiatives and secure video encryption. Google also added a brute force attack avoidance feature to the platform to prevent malicious entities or hackers from compromising a meeting or conference call.