If you’re hooked on IM, you should already be good friends with eBuddy. If you don’t know eBuddy – and if you do use instant messaging tools on any sort of regular basis – it’s time to get acquianted with this mobile app for your Nokia mobile device.

Let’s start with the basics: eBuddy Mobile Messenger is free to download from Ovi Store; and the app is expected to work on a HUGE range of Nokia devices – this includes Series 40, S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices. In fact, if you look at the list of compatible devices on the eBuddy website, there are at least 150 Nokia devices listed that should be able to use this app – I was trying to keep track, but I must confess I lost count. (Use the drop-down menu from the site to select “Nokia” and then find your device in the 2nd drop-down menu to the right.)

Once you have eBuddy installed on your Nokia device, it is easy to set up and begin chatting. Within the Settings for the app, you can quickly add individual accounts to the app, including: Yahoo, AIM, MSN, ICQ, MySpace, GTalk – and Facebook.

You must set-up credentials with each of those sites – one time only – and then eBuddy takes care of the rest. It syncs with all of those IM services, letting you know which of your friends/contacts are online or not.

So, if you have some friends on AIM, and some who use Facebook, you can chat with any of them within the context of eBuddy. Now, one caveat – this is not cross-linking those IM clients in some all-powerful way. You need to have an account with each of the services you want to use within eBuddy. In other words, if you’re on GTalk, but your friend is on Yahoo IM, you’re not going to be able to chat with one another … one of you is going to need to make a compromise and sign up for the other service, too.

The app also keeps track of recent chats that you’ve had, so you can resume chatting with those individuals the next time you are both online. As a new chat begins, it creates its own “tab” within the navigation for the app, which is really nice – it keeps clutter to a minimum, and makes it easy for you to go back-and-forth between chats, or whatever else you might happen to be doing at the time.

Like other IM clients, you can set a picture of yourself to display with eBuddy, and you can customize your “status” message, as needed.

I’ve been using eBuddy on my Nokia E72 – the qwerty keyboard makes using the app as easy as texting. The app also includes emoticons – and includes a small set with the app. There is also a link to download more images for use with your chatting – you should plan to add them, as they only take up a tiny amount of additional memory, and they certainly give you more choices when it comes to the ways you express yourself. 

Another cool feature within eBuddy is the ability to send pictures taken with the camera built in to your Nokia device to your friends via IM. Within a chat, you select the Menu option, and then pick a “source” for your image – either one already saved to your device in Memory, or a picture you take then and there using the built-in camera.

eBuddy also includes a small selection of pre-defined text that you can use in your chats – if you don’t have time to type! – and you can edit that copy, too. I was a little surprised to see one of these text choices, though – see the highlighted text below – I hope no one is actually driving and IM’ing at the same time, but this should certainly serve as a reminder that mixing those two activities is a bad idea.

The app is “supported” by small text-based ads that appear at the bottom of the screen, but those are easy enough to ignore, and they undoubtedly help to keep the app free.

Finally – and this is a hope for future versions of the app – there is no integration with your Ovi account right now, so you can’t chat directly with other Ovi users … Perhaps this is something the developers will consider for the next release of eBuddy. Again, given how many Nokia devices are capable of using eBuddy, this would seem like a natural addition to this app. If we get more information about this, we’ll let you know.

The eBuddy Mobile Messenger is free to download in Ovi Store.