These 5 apps make better phone calls than your phone app — and you probably already have them

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The phone app that comes with your smartphone is fine, but it uses your carriers' decades-old technology.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of apps out there that use newer technology for better-sounding phone calls.

Carriers have been improving the audio quality of phone calls with HD voice, but it's still hit or miss whether or not your call will actually use HD voice.

If you use these apps to make phone calls, though, you'll end up using up a bit of your data, but you'd need to log some serious minutes when you're off WiFi to make any significant impact on your data usage. They're also perfect for international voice calls, too, as they're essentially free.

These apps aren't perfect, mind you, as whoever you're calling needs the same app. That's why I've chosen popular apps that you and your circle are more likely to have.

Check them out:

Facebook Messenger

It wouldn't be surprising that a decent portion of your contacts have the Facebook app, and therefore Facebook's separate Messenger app.

Facebook's Messenger is mostly known for text messaging, but you can use it to make crystal-clear phone calls over your data and WiFi connections, as well as video calls. You can also make audio and video calls from Facebook on your computer, too.

Skype

Skype has been around since the very early days of video calling, and it's pretty much synonymous with staying in touch with faraway friends and family. It's mostly known for video calling, but you can make audio/voice-only calls using Skype on your mobile device and computer, too.

Google Hangouts

Hangouts was originally an app for Google's desktop Gmail chat feature (also now called Hangouts), but it has evolved to include voice and video calls on both mobile devices and computers.

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