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Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET
About a month ago, an app called Call+ made a pretty tantalizing offer: unlimited free calls to a few countries, with fairly easy ways to earn call time for a bunch of others.
If you liked the idea but didn’t need to call anyone in Brazil, China or Mexico, here’s good news: Call+ now gives you free calls to 16 countries. With most countries you can only call landlines for free, but some include mobile numbers.
Using the free app, which makes it look as though calls are coming from your existing number, you can reach out and touch the following destinations:
- US, now including Hawaii (landlines and mobiles)
- Canada (landlines and mobiles)
- UK
- Ireland
- Mexico
- China
- Brazil (Brasilia, Sao Paulo, Rio, Belo Horizonte only)
- France
- Italy
- Portugal
- Norway
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Netherlands
- Israel
- Thailand
It’s free to download on Android and iPhone.
Obviously there are lots of apps that let you make free calls, but usually these limit you to calling other mobile devices that have the same app installed. If you want to call a landline, there’s almost always a per-minute fee involved.
If you want to use Call+ to call a mobile phone or a country not on the freebie list, you’ll have to spend a little time or money. You can buy a day’s worth of unlimited calling for 99 cents, or complete various “partner” offers to earn blocks of time.
But, for example, if you have family in Thailand and just want to make free calls from your phone (without impacting your monthly minutes or paying exorbitant international rates), now you can. I continue to find Call+ one of the most appealing phone apps in recent memory.
