How does Facetime compare to normal video calling? So, Apple is billing Facetime as though it is a revolutionary technology. I'm not going to ask you whether you think it is, as that is clearly a subjective question. What I will ask instead is how does it compare to normal video calling. Is there anything new that hasn't been done before?
Entirely new? No - not really, but the quality is quite acceptable (I'd say it's better than most Skype video calls I've had) and it's extremely painless to use. It's also at the present time far more limited in audience (only iPhone 4's, iPad 2's and Macs) than normal video calling.

You can think of it as video calling built right into the OS with software that doesn't require hoops (no log in required) to jump through to use it.