Good application with some shortcomings
Updated November 11, 2021
Good application with some shortcomings
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Webex Meetings
As a university lecturer, I used Webex Meetings for online teaching, last year during the pandemic.
Although our faculty uses a different teaching platform, I chose to use
Meetings because I already had a good impression of it from the Cisco
Academy. Although I've switched to another app right now, I still use Meetings from time to time.
Although our faculty uses a different teaching platform, I chose to use
Meetings because I already had a good impression of it from the Cisco
Academy. Although I've switched to another app right now, I still use Meetings from time to time.
- Simplified design, which is good for people who have not used it before (for example students).
- A simplified idea for a Personal Room link in the form of https://xxx.webex.com/meet/yyy, which can be given to students once (or published somewhere). When it is a time for a lecture, the participants just need to open the link. Much more convenient instead of sending personal invitations each time.
- "Stop|Shared" / "Share|Not Shared" button on each window is very useful for quickly stopping/starting the sharing of a window during the presentation (when the participants are watching the presentation and it is important that the presentation goes smoothly, and not waiting for you to choose from the menus which window to share).
- Stable application, good sound and video transmission.
- The latest updates also work with my wireless earbuds (Sony WF-1000XM4).
- When sharing a window, people see not only the shared window but also the entire desktop as a background (as a dark rectangle). Yes, you can expand the window to full screen, but it's not convenient if we have one monitor and we want to use notes from another window which is not visible for example. This is one of the cornerstones for me to start using another app. I teach IT stuffs and I usually want to share only one window, in my case a virtual machine (VMware, VirtualBox). Why should students have to see also the whole my desktop as a black background?!
- In addition to the above, when sharing a window, students see how the mouse pointer moves outside the shared window (on the black desktop) as I move the mouse to another unshared window (e.g. with my notes). They don't see the unshared window, but see the mouse hanging around which distracts them and they lose focus from the shared window they have to watch. Quite annoying.
- Sharing is not easy when there are multiple windows for the same application. For example if I have 3 Firefox windows, I can't choose which one to share. Under the "Share content" on the menu, where I have to choose what to share, the 3 windows come out as one "Firefox (3)". Choosing that will share the foreground window (or several if they overlap each other). If one of the windows is on another monitor, it becomes impossible to choose which one to share. I hope this will be fixed soon.
- Annotate opportunities are not as good as in the competition. There are no shortcuts for selecting the various elements (to be quickly selected during the presentation), no possibility to draw a filled / semi-transparent square or oval, no diamond for block diagrams. This is the other reason I started using another application, as I use a graphics tablet in presentations and annotations are important for my.
- I'm just a lecturer and I can't say anything about the business objectives related to the application, but thanks to it I was able to cope with the training of students during the pandemic.
Do you think Webex Meetings delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Webex Meetings's feature set?
No
Did Webex Meetings live up to sales and marketing promises?
I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process
Did implementation of Webex Meetings go as expected?
I wasn't involved with the implementation phase
Would you buy Webex Meetings again?
No
Webex Meetings Feature Ratings
Using Webex Meetings
Evaluating Webex Meetings and Competitors
I prefer Zoom (better annotations, ability to share just a window not the whole desktop as a background), but Webex is my second choice with its simplicity of operation and the ability to share a simple personal room link.