More area for tiles and Skype advice

[HoosierDaddy]

My father bought an Acer Switch 10 for his non-techie wife. It will mostly be for video calls with her kids and grandkids at least at first. She doesn't even have an email account except for the one at Outlook.com that exists just to anchor her MS account for her phone and now the tablet.

Does anyone know of any registry hacks to increase the area of the screen used for tiles? I was shocked to see less than half of the screen area used for tiles. The unused area above and below combined are as much of the screen as the tiles in the middle. I know she doesn't need many tiles now, but it makes the tablet seem more foreign to her phone than it needs to be and causes some anxiety. I had completely forgotten about this aspect because none of my 3 PC monitors are touch so I installed Start8 right away and never saw tiles on my desktop after that. I imagined that Windows on a tablet would be more like on the phone.

My other question has to do with alternatives to Skype for video calls. Is there something better that is available on every platform for free? Its critical that she only has to learn one app and that app be available to anyone who might want to do video calls with her. And if there is something better, any idea if it will be able to switch from regular calls to video calls already in progress like I understand Skype will do in the near future on WP. That's probably a low priority but MIGHT matter when she gets a phone (L640) with a front camera in the next few months and wants to video call on her phone.

Thanks.

 

[jfa1]

for video calling Viber is an alternative and Whats App is getting video calling.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

for video calling Viber is an alternative and Whats App is getting video calling.

Thanks! Saw your post via email yesterday but hadn't been back to the forums. Will check Viber out. If Whats App is future (even near) she won't want to wait and I don't think she would be receptive to learn a second app later.