LINE: Calls & Messages

Review by eFreeware

LINE is a free communication app from LINE (LY Corporation) that handles messaging, voice calls and video calls in one place. It has been available since June 2011 and now sits past a billion installs, which tells you how widely it has been adopted as a default way to stay in touch. The main reason to consider it is the combination of everyday chat and calling with a layer of self-expression through stickers, emojis and themes.

The app is free to install, it carries ads and it offers in-app purchases. Its average rating sits at 3.1 from a very large pool of ratings, so the reception is mixed rather than uniformly glowing. I would treat that as a signal to look at what the app actually provides and decide whether those pieces fit how you communicate.

Messaging, calls and the home screen

At its core, LINE does the things you would expect from a modern chat app: you exchange messages with people on your friends list and place voice or video calls to them. The developer frames this as a way to keep faraway family, friends and loved ones in touch without a cost, and the basic tools are all here for one-to-one and group conversation.

The Home area is where the app organizes itself. From there you reach your friends list, see birthdays, browse the sticker shop and get to the other services LINE offers. It reads as a hub rather than a plain inbox, so the app is doing more than passing text back and forth.

Calls and messages run through the same app, which keeps things simple if the people you talk to most are already using it. The developer also notes that the platform keeps growing with new services, so the Home screen is likely to remain the place where those additions surface.

Stickers, emojis and themes

Stickers are the part of LINE that people tend to notice first. The app gives you a wide selection of stickers and emojis for expressing yourself, and the developer pitches this as a way to communicate in ways you might not have considered. If you like reacting with an image instead of typing a sentence, this is clearly the app's center of gravity.

Themes let you change how the app looks, and you can find and apply the ones you prefer. Between stickers and themes, there is a customization layer that runs alongside the plain messaging functions, which is a large part of why the app feels different from a bare-bones chat tool.

The sticker shop sits inside the Home area, which makes browsing part of the normal flow rather than a separate errand. The app is free and offers in-app purchases.

Keep Memo, Letter Sealing and privacy

Keep Memo is a chatroom that belongs to you alone, used to temporarily hold messages, photos and videos. It works as a scratch space for things you want to keep close at hand without sending them to anyone, holding your own personal information.

Letter Sealing is the app's encryption feature. It covers your messages, call history and location information as a way to keep your LINE use private. That is a meaningful piece to have in a communication app, and it applies to more than just the text you send.

Both features are described plainly rather than dressed up as unusual, and they sit alongside the calling and messaging tools rather than replacing them. For anyone who uses a chat app as a running record of conversations and shared media, having a private holding area and encryption on the main channels is the sort of thing that matters over time.

Using LINE across phone, desktop and Wear OS

LINE is built to work on mobile, desktop and Wear OS, with the connection between them presented as smooth. In practice that means you can chat from a phone on the move, from a computer at the office or while working remotely, and from a watch when reaching for a phone is inconvenient.

Messages can be handled from a Wear OS watch, and the watch face can show a LINE complication. That is a narrower use than full messaging on a phone, but it covers the common case of glancing at what arrived without pulling out another device.

The developer recommends a data plan or a Wi-Fi connection, since otherwise you may run into data usage fees. The app also asks for Android 11.0 or above to get the fullest experience, and a slow network or insufficient device storage can prevent LINE from installing at all. Those are the practical conditions worth checking before you commit to it.

What kind of user LINE fits

LINE makes the most sense for people who want their conversations to carry some personality. If stickers, emojis and themes are part of how you like to talk to friends and family, the app is built around that idea rather than treating it as an add-on.

It also suits anyone who moves between devices during the day. The support for phone, desktop and Wear OS means the same conversations follow you from one screen to another, which is useful if you are sometimes at a computer and sometimes away from one.

The app is free, carries ads and offers in-app purchases, and it has a 3.1 average rating from a large number of ratings. That combination suggests a broad, established user base with a range of opinions, so it is worth going in with a clear idea of which parts of the app you actually intend to use.

A messaging app for people who talk in stickers

LINE is a good fit if you want a free app that combines messaging, voice and video calls with a strong expressive layer and a private memo space. The sticker and theme system gives it a character that plain chat tools lack, and Keep Memo plus Letter Sealing add practical value for people who keep a lot of their daily conversation inside one app.

The trade-offs are plain: you need Android 11.0 or above for the fullest experience, a data plan or Wi-Fi to avoid usage fees, and enough storage and a fast enough connection for the install to go through. The app is free but carries ads and in-app purchases.

I would suggest LINE to people who already lean on stickers and themes to communicate, and to anyone who wants the same conversations available on a phone, a computer and a Wear OS watch. If your needs are limited to plain text and calls, the extra layers here are the reason to choose it or not.

What's new

• We fixed a few issues to make your LINE experience even better. Update to the latest version today.