Earlier this week we gave you the heads up about Trillian giving out beta invites hand over fist. If you're on the fence about Astra, here's a closer look at what you can expect.
If you've had trouble in the past getting an invitation to test out the beta of Trillian Astra, now is a great time to grab one. You should receive notification almost instantly—when I signed up earlier today I received a notice in a matter of seconds. Not sure if you're going to bother signing up? We've taken copious screenshots to help you decide. There are a host of settings in Trillian, check out the screenshots below to get a feel for them:
Astra comes with a 30 day trial of Trillian Pro, after 30 days it will revert to Trillian Basic. The full feature list for Trillian Astra is available here, unfortunately at the moment there isn't a detailed comparison between the pro and basic editions. What do you get with a Pro license? Advanced video chat features are Pro only, including full screen mode and video effects. The history feature is limited to basic logging unless you upgrade to Pro, Pro users can view their chat history as a time line, bookmark points in the logs, and search the text. Unlike the previous versions of Trillian, the basic version includes plugin support. Other minor features from the Pro edition include some visual tweaks, a show last line marker, and auto history which displays the last lines of a previous chat.
Trillian Basic is free, Trillian Pro is $25 for new customers and $10 if you're upgrading from a previous Pro edition of Trillian. Trillian Astra is (or in some cases, will be) available for Windows, Mac OS X, and the iPhone.