Scan to Text Free 2.0.3.37 - app

Scan to Text Free is a mobile scanner and optical character recognition (OCR) app that allows you to save scans as PDFs and extract text from images.

From print to digital in seconds

Scan to Text Free is a smart app that allows you to scan pages from books, magazines, and hard copy documents and convert them to PDF or text files on your BlackBerry device. 

After scanning a document with Scan to Text Free using your phone's camera you have the option to save it as a PDF or extract the text from the document. The app supports multiple pages of PDFs, and you can rearrange pages at your leisure.

Extracted text can be edited before you accept it. This text can then be saved, shared, or copied though these functions are not available through the free version, and you'll need to purchase the premium version of Scan to Text to activate it.

Scan to Text Free supports a wide range of different languages for text recognition. The default is set to English but you can download new language packs for free through the app. 

Good reader

The optical character recognition in Scan to Text Free is quite impressive. Roughly 90% of the texts we tested using the app were reproduced perfectly. The application automatically straightens and sharpens up images you've taken, so that even if your photos aren't perfect Scan to Text Free has a good chance of being able to read it. Still, it struggles with glossy print at times, especially when there's a direct light source bouncing off the page.

One of the great things about Scan to Text Free is that it all the text recognition processing is done offline through the app itself rather than via a server. This means it won't use up precious mobile data. Also, captured images aren't stored on your photos folder, so they won't take over your album!

Scan to Text Free is a well designed app that encapsulates the BlackBerry 10 user experience. From capturing and previewing to extracting and saving, the interface walks you through the process in a seamless way. Even if you've never used an OCR app before you'll pick it up in no time.

The verdict

Scan to Text Free is an excellent OCR reader and PDF scanner for BlackBerry. It's not 100% accurate all the time but it does a fine job of text recognition and has some useful features.

Download Scan to Text Free 2.0.3.37

Box 1.2.0.79 - app

Box is one of the best options on the market for storing files and documents online. With its application for BlackBerry 10, you can access your files from anywhere.

Box offers up to 10GB of space in the cloud. You can access your photos, videos, documents, etc.. as well as sharing them with others or automatically saving back ups of all your photos.

If you're looking for a service for storing and accessing your documents remotely, Box is one of the stand-out options.

Download Box 1.2.0.79

Abs Workout 8.3.2 - app

Abs Workout is an Android fitness app that promises to give you the perfect six-pack in just six weeks.

Based on the Aerobic Weider Six program, Abs workout sets six exercises to repeat every day for 42 days. There's a workout guide that takes you through each session, with diagrams of each exercise, a timer, and a text-to-speech female voice to direct you. You can log the history of your workouts in the app.

Abs Workout is a decent tool for toning abs, though the workouts can be pretty punishing.

c•PRO craigslist Client Droid 2.62 - app

c•PRO craigslist Client Droid is the Craigslist client that does it all.

If you like to buy and sell things on Craigslist, it makes sense for you to have an app on your Android phone. As far as these apps go, c•PRO craigslist Client Droid really does seem to have a competitive advantage. Not only does it have the basics - searching for ads and posting - completely covered, it also has a raft of features that make using Craigslist a breeze, especially if you're a frequent or high-volume user.

c•PRO craigslist Client Droid is pretty standard when it comes to listing and posting. You can do all you would expect, like filtering results, marking favorites and sharing posts, but where the app really stands out is in its advanced search functions.

Not only does c•PRO craigslist Client Droid allow you to save search agents (so the app automatically notifies you when it finds a search that matches your specifications even when you're not actually using it), it also allows you to filter results by criteria such as whether or not the listing has photos, and if you want to set a price limit.

Although compared to most websites, c•PRO craigslist Client Droid doesn't offer anything mindblowing, as far as Craigslist apps, the options can be quite limited, making c•PRO craigslist Client Droid pretty impressive. It's also free and, at the very least, not horrifically ugly, so it's definitely worth a few minutes of your time.

c•PRO craigslist Client Droid has some excellent features that make buying and selling on Craigslist a breeze. Check it out!

Google Play Books 3.1.49 - app

Google Play Books is a top-class e-book reader app that combines a slick user interface with tons of useful features that make the reading experience very pleasurable.

Enhanced reading experience

The Google Play Books app is well organized, although it lacks some features of other e-reading apps, such as the ability to sort your books into collections, social connections, and access any magazines you've purchased.

On the side menu, there is a 'Read Now' section, which displays the books you have recently been reading, as well as recommended reads. The 'My Library' section combines separate menus for the books you have purchased, ones you have uploaded (in PDF or EPUB format), any samples you have downloaded to try before you buy, and a menu that displays all of these options. These can be sorted by title, author and recent.

One really useful feature Google has incorporated is text translation, which will help anyone reading a book that isn't in their native language. All you do is highlight the word or sentence and then click on the strange symbol with an A in it then chose your language.

When you are reading a book, you can view the bookmarks in a pop up box, as well as get more information about places (I clicked on Budapest in a book and it brought up a Wikipedia page about the city in Hungry) and definitions of words.

Other features include adding a note to a book, as well as the usual bookmarking tool and text highlight option. You also can easily see an overview of all of your bookmarks and notes in the menu.

Better than reading a regular book (in some ways)

When you click on your book to start reading, you will find a number of really useful features that enhance the reading experience and adds something that you can't find when you read a real book. Firstly, when you tap the center of a book, it zooms out so you can easily flick through pages by using the slider. It's a really speedy way to move through the book.

The Google Play Books shop has been much improved in recent years and, while it can't rival Amazon's Kindle store in terms of deals and special offers, it offers very competitive prices on many books. So it's worth shopping around in the same way you would in any high street store.

The shop is much more visual, attractive and organized than the one incorporated in the Kindle store. It's perfect for mobile browsing. You can also very easily pay with your Google Play details or with PayPal. However, it's not incorporated into the app so you do have to go outside to the books section of the Google Play store to buy anything.

Heading to the top of the charts

With the improvements Google has been making to this e-reading app as well as the related e-book store, Google Play Books has become a force to be reckoned with. If Google added the ability to make purchases within the app, included more deals and special offers on books, and added the ability to organize your books into customized lists or collections then it would be a top choice for reading e-books.

Marvel Comics 3.6.4.36409 - app

The world of Marvel comics is now available at your fingertips thanks to this official Android app.

Get your Spidey senses tingling

First things first, this is an official Marvel Comics app, so you'll definitely only be able to read and buy their comics. But as long as it's Spiderman you like and not Batman, Marvel Comics is a superb reader.

Marvel Comics is free to download, and features some free content, but it's really designed as a portal to buy and download comics. You can't import CBR of image files or scanned comics, and everything has to be downloaded and bought within the app. This means you can't share your comics like you might have when you were a kid, but once you've used it, you might not care.

Who needs paper?

Viewing comics in Marvel Comics is absolutely fantastic. You can browse with a cover flow-style page viewer, then view full screen pages, and pinch and zoom quickly and easily to move around a page.

The really great feature, however, is the animated panel transition. Swipe right to left on a page and it isolates and zooms to the first panel, swiping again slides to the next, or sometimes to another part of the panel when it's particularly big. This is incredibly smooth, user friendly and feels great. It's not unique to Marvel Comics, but that doesn't make it any less cool.

It's easy to sort through your purchases in the Marvel Comics app, allowing you to order them by Series, Purchase Date, and Title.

A must-have for Marvel fans

Some fans will never read a comic digitally, but for those who do, this Marvel Comics app makes the touch screen experience really work well.

VICE.com 1.0.1 - app

VICE.com is home to fascinating, edgy news stories and documentaries that are published in a variety of languages. These stories cover a slew of topics ranging from the Islamic State to niche music scenes in London. The app version of the site provides much of the same content wrapped in a sleek design.

The VICE experience

For those who aren't familiar with VICE, it's a media company that has grown from a website that covered indie music and pop culture to a well-funded empire that publishes a magazine, books, and documentaries. In particular, VICE has gained acclaim for an immersive and subjective style of journalism that they've used to cover serious news topics such as post-Ukrainian life in Crimea and heroin addicts in the Czech Republic.

The VICE.com app pulls all these news stories and presents them in a minimalist, black-and-white design. Stories are presented beautifully with text and photos fitting into the screen, which gives you the feeling that your device has been turned into a proper ereader.

As far as I can tell, there aren't ads in the app (or they weren't noticeable) which makes for an excellent reading experience that isn't common in most advertising-heavy news apps.

VICE.com also has videos within the app. Some are embedded YouTube videos and work as they would on a normal website. Other videos are directly from VICE and play on their no-frills video player.

Easy reading

Browsing through VICE.com is a breeze and provides a similar experience to the mobile web version of the site. The main page is a feed of articles that you can scroll through. In the top left corner of the screen, there's a tab that drops down which has sections such as Fashion, News, and their popular Dos & Don'ts.

You can flip between articles and menus by swiping left and right. The swiping feels intuitive, but there were times when the app recognized my swipes as text selection rather page-flipping. If you're interested in saving the article for later, there's a button on the top right-hand side of the screen. It supports Gmail and Hangouts sharing, but is missing sharing via popular apps such as WhatsApp and Twitter.

Great app for interesting stories

Although VICE.com is missing some helpful features, it's still an excellent app for keeping up on and reading all the great content coming from their site.

Google Play Newsstand 3.3 - app

Google Play Newsstand is a magazine reader for Android.

You purchase apps through Google Play and they are stored in Google Play Newsstand. It's a simple app to use, but the main limitation is the amount of magazines available.

Google Play Newsstand is optimized for smartphones and tablets so it is not difficult to read pages. The text is easily readable, and maneuvering in each magazine is simple. You can purchase back issues, along with subscriptions to ensure you have the latest issue of your favorite magazine.

Since Google Play Newsstand is connected to your Google account, you can access your magazines from multiple devices.

Google Play Newsstand is a good app only restricted by the number of titles available.

Download Google Play Newsstand 3.3

OruxMaps 6.0.1 - app

OruxMaps has been tested by Softonic, but it still doesn't have a review in English.

Download OruxMaps 6.0.1

eBay 2.8.0.57 - app

eBay is an online auction and shopping app that helps users bid, buy, or sell items, which brings the best of its popular website to its mobile app.

Shop til you drop

If you're an avid eBay user, this is a must have app. You can access all of your eBay information including watch lists, purchase history, sales pages, and can manage your eBay or just browse and buy items from the site.

eBay provides real time counters so you can place your bid right at the end of an auction. If you've bid on an item or have an item in your watch list that is about to expire, you will get push notifications warning you that the auction is about to end. This is extremely handy for those who can't access a computer to place a bid.

Other useful features that are displayed prominently on the home screen include My Feed, which allows you to discover new items based on categories you've expressed an interest in. There is also a section for deals, a seasonal shop (Christmas, for example) and the ability to follow searches and sellers. This all gives eBay a very social feel to it.

The most important information at your fingertips

eBay has a slick, clean and very visual user interface, which makes browsing for items super quick and easy.The graphics are crisp and clear, which allows you to easily see what you are bidding for. Selling is also really simple. You can either pick categories and enter details or scan a bar code.

When you open an item to bid on it, the listing page looks very attractive and colorful, and it really makes the most of the images. In addition, the price and shipping details are displayed in a large font right underneath with big blue buttons that allow you to watch or buy the item. As you scroll down the page, all the necessary information has been broken down into digestible categories meaning you can easily read it.

The way the menus are organized means any information you need is at your fingertips. Displaying 'My eBay', 'Categories' and 'Sell an Item' in big blocks at the top with pictures of your most recently viewed items underneath helps you quickly access the most important options.

eBay's Android user experience is on par with the web, possibly even better due to how it breaks down the information and the way the buttons are displayed to allow you to always be no more than one click away from what you want to do.

Built with users in mind

This app makes it extremely easy to browse and manage your eBay activity. It has an attractive and intuitive layout, is very easy to use while being a highly-visual app. Overall, eBay offers a great mobile experience, whether you are buying, selling or merely browsing.

Bible 5.3 - app

Flexible, easy to use, and completely portable, Bible is an excellent way to access the Holy Bible from your Android phone.

Search by chapter and verse

Bible is really easy to read. Access the Bible icon from the homescreen and tap the top bar to browse by book, chapter, or version. Choose a verse, touch and hold to select, and then you’ll be able to hit the little arrow in the bottom right to bookmark, share, or copy. You’ll also be able to search for specific references.

Easy access to the Bible

What makes Bible a little bit special is the other features available on the app. Apart from it being really easy to browse your bookmarks, there’s also a Reading Plan feature to help you get a more profound understanding of the Holy Book. Bible also lets you search for Bible Study groups by name or postcode, but this only seems to be available in the US.

Even better, you’ll be able to share Bible passages directly on Facebook or Twitter, or, if you’re offline, read the Bibles you've downloaded to the app. Bible doesn't have that many configuration options, but as long as the basics cover your needs, it’s a great app.

Streamlined study

Bible the best option around for Bible study on the go.

Download Bible 5.3

My Wallets 3.1 - app

If you want to control your expenses and income, and always know how much was spent and received in the past day, week, month or year, this program will be a good helper to you. You can find out how much you spend money every day. You can create a variety of wallets and cards to control the balance of cash, balance on credit card in a safe or in the bank. You can create groups and sub-groups that can help you find out which area is the largest nursing or parish funds. Also, you can view a variety of graphic statements of your savings.

- Keeping purses adding icons. - Managing groups, sub-groups, etc. With the addition of icons. - Keeping parishes and loss bound to wallets and groups. - Conducting money transfers between wallets. - View the report daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. - View the schedule of change of day, week, month and year. - View the report on expenses and incomes with a grouping for a selected period. - View the report on expenses and incomes with a partition on the wallets for the selected period. - View a pie chart of expenses and incomes with grouping for a selected period. - View the total expenses of the parish and loss for the chosen period. - Import and export database to a file. - Set a password for entry the program. - And etc...

Real user comments: - More simple and easy application. - Nice apps. Easy to use - Great app. Handy tool thanks - Very good. I like it - Good so far. I think it's a very good app. Very easy to use and get to know. No complaints so far. - Very easy. Really easy to use. There aren't any complications to get crazy about on this app. - Very good I have been searching for simple app to track my expenses. I found this app it's really simple but works fine. And etc...

This application will be an assistant for all users. Just as most suitable for people who do not know what happens to their money savings.

Download My Wallets 3.1

Microsoft Excel for Android tablets - app

With Microsoft's push to prioritize cross-platform services as well as be a mobile-first company, it's become very important to provide programs on iOS and Android, instead of trying to convince users to adopt software on Windows and Windows Phone.

As part of this strategy the company has delivered Office apps (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) for iOS and an Office Mobile suite for Android phones. Now the company has released a touch-optimized beta version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android tablets.

Late to the party

Given that Google's office suite has been out for some time, Microsoft is lagging behind in the touch-optimized productivity suite market, but it the company is hoping to find success from the many people who have already bought into its ecosystem.

Currently Excel for Android tablets (along with Word and PowerPoint) is only available for ARM-based Android tablets with a 7" to 10.1" screen, 1GB RAM and running KitKat (4.4.x). But Microsoft is working on expanding it further, specifically to Intel-powered tablets, as well as those with different screen sizes and running Android Lollipop 5.0, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system.

In the beta version, there is no need to have an Office 365 account to download these apps; a Microsoft email address is enough to sign up to this 'Freemium' version.

Lacking in features

Unsurprisingly, Excel for Android tablets is not as fully featured as its desktop sister version. In fact, it feels like a very cut-down version, with only the most basic features included. So what can you do? You can format text, insert tables, pictures, charts and comments; and change the way you view the spreadsheet. While the most commonly used formulas have been included, there are a few features that make using Excel easier that haven't been included. This includes the ability to search for a certain type of formula and to create a formula from a certain selection, such as the top row or left column.

There are also no page layout features, image editing options, and you can't import data from other sources or perform any automatic conditional formatting.

Excel for Android tablets also falls down on its collaboration functionality.You can email a sheet as an attachment but not enable a document to be edited by multiple users at the same time.

But, on a positive note, you can sync your OneDrive and Dropbox accounts, allowing you to open documents from and save them to the cloud (as well as your device, if you prefer). Support of other cloud services would be useful.

Familiar ribbon interface

If you're already familiar with Excel (Office 2007 and onwards) then the ribbon interface will be very recognizable and you'll be able to easily flick between menus in the slick interface without problems. The sometimes overwhelming features and menus have been condensed with only the most important ones included, which makes it a lot more simple and straightforward to use. And also a lot quicker to find what you want. For example, I often struggle to remember where freeze panes is in the desktop version but it's very obvious in the Android tablet version.

If you're a power user and you want to create complex formulas quickly then Excel for Android tablets is not the ideal way to do it; desktop is still king in that respect.

Navigation horizontally and vertically is very smooth. But one major problem is that the keyboard takes up most of the screen when entering data, making it very difficult to see all the information in the spreadsheet. That makes Excel for Android tablets much better suited to bigger screens, or portrait view if entering data. The touch control isn't precise, which makes adding and editing formulas tricky.

The jury is out

Because Excel is used for such as wide range of functions and users (from the most basic to very advanced calculations), it was always going to be more difficult to get a touch-optimized version right. Excel for Android tablets is likely to be hugely frustrating to power users because there are some common features missing. For casual users, the design of the menus means that features are so much easier to find than in the desktop version and you aren't overwhelmed by the mountain of complex options that you never use.

It's important to note that this is only a beta version and Microsoft will likely have improved usability and added options by the time of general release. But whether this is enough to poach users from Google Sheets and convince its desktop Office users remains to be seen.

Download Microsoft Excel for Android tablets

Microsoft Word for Android tablets - app

With Microsoft's push to prioritize cross-platform services as well as be a mobile-first company, it's become very important to provide programs on iOS and Android, instead of trying to convince users to adopt software on Windows and Windows Phone.

As part of this strategy the company has delivered Office apps (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) for iOS and an Office Mobile suite for Android phones. Now the company has released a touch-optimized beta version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android tablets.

Late to the party

Given that Google's office suite has been out for some time, Microsoft is lagging behind in the touch-optimized productivity suite market, but it the company is hoping to find success from the many people who have already bought into its ecosystem.

Currently Word for Android tablets (along with Excel and PowerPoint) is only available for ARM-based Android tablets with a 7" to 10.1" screen, 1GB RAM and running KitKat (4.4.x). But Microsoft is working on expanding it further, specifically to Intel-powered tablets, as well as those with different screen sizes and running Android Lollipop 5.0, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system.

In the beta version, there is no need to have an Office 365 account to download these apps; a Microsoft email address is enough to sign up to this 'Freemium' version.

Key desktop features included

Unsurprisingly, Word for Android tablets is not as fully featured as its desktop sister version. But Microsoft has brought the most commonly-used features in the desktop version of the program over to the Android tablet touch-optimized offering.

You can format your text, insert objects (such as pictures, text boxes and links), change the layout, track changes and alter viewing options. With the last option, the ability to switch between read and edit view is a highlight, as Word is not just about creating and editing documents, but also about consuming them. The read option borrows from the Kindle by allowing you to change the background of your documents from the traditional white to sepia or black (for night view).

If you have the OneDrive app on your tablet it automatically syncs the data (you can add both personal and business accounts). You can also add Dropbox or your SharePoint site, as well as opening documents stored locally on your device. Documents can then also be saved in the cloud again in any of these locations.

One really important feature that is missing at the moment is the ability to collaborate with others on the same document - something that is included in Google Docs. This is the biggest omission in this beta version, but there is also no option to export as PDF, no find and replace feature, and spell check wasn't supported on my device (Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0).

The familiar ribbon interface remains

If you're already familiar with Word (Office 2007 and onwards) then the ribbon interface will be very recognizable and you'll be able to easily flick between menus in the slick interface without problems. The fact that there aren't as many options and menus will please many users who struggle to find the feature they want in the increasingly feature-heavy desktop version and prefer to stay with the drop-down menus in pre-Office 2007 versions.

However, it's not all smooth sailing. Manipulating images is a clunky process. Firstly, not all pictures can be uploaded. The reason for this is not apparent, although it seemed to be linked to the device location I tried to upload them from. Then there are no image editing options - all you can do is move the image and resize it.

When you have more than one document open, it doesn't seem to be possible to move between one and the other, meaning you can only work on one Word file at a time.

Word-processing dominance beckons

Considering that Word for Android tablets is only a beta version it has a large amount of features (already more than Google Docs) and is pretty bug-free. Although there is much work still to be done to configure it for different sized tablets running on Intel with different versions of the Android operating systems.

Given that it sports a familiar look and feel to the desktop version but with alterations to suit a touch screen, Microsoft has a good chance of getting a foothold in the market in a similar way to its dominance in the desktop word processing market.

Site Journal 1.18 - app

The Site Journal for Android is intended to help site-supervising architects, engineers, and construction companies document site inspections. All important data, events and associated site photos are conveniently processed and managed with this slim and fast program. This program enables site-supervising architects, engineers, owners, and building contractors to record their site inspections in a simple and easily readable manner. In addition to multiple input modes, it stands out because of the following features: fast and convenient navigation between the individual daily reports. Input of the persons and companies involved in the construction project and access to this data within the program structure. Photos showing the per

Fast and convenient navigation between the individual daily reports. Input of the persons and companies involved in the construction project and access to this data within the program structure. Photos showing the performance level and defects can be included in the daily reports. Functionality: Quick recording of: Weather, temperature and humidity. Attendees and site staffing. Performance level, deficiencies, delays, hindrances, and acceptance. Instructions and additional works given. Execution of important building operations, tests and measurements. Statements on materials, deliveries, storage, test specimen, and drawing deliveries.

In addition to multiple input modes, it stands out because of the following features: fast and convenient navigation between the individual daily reports. Input of the persons and companies involved in the construction project and access to this data within the program structure. Photos showing the performance level and defects can be included in the daily reports.

Microsoft Office Mobile 15.0.3515.2000 - app

Office Mobile for Office 365 allows you to open, view and edit Microsoft Office documents on your phone.

What can you do with Office Mobile for Android?

Microsoft Office Mobile is designed to let you access your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents on the go, using your Android phone. Unlike the Windows Phone version of Microsoft Office, the Android app doesn't support OneNote documents (for this, download the Microsoft OneNote Mobile app).

Office Mobile lets you access all of your Office documents that are stored in the Cloud and any changes you make will be saved and synchronized. Office Mobile supports sharing via OneDrive and SharePoint.

Open and view Office documents on your phone

Opening and viewing your documents in Office Mobile is a real delight. The Open tab neatly lists all your various storage spaces with Microsoft (OneDrive or SharePoint) and you can add individual folders to this menu to give you quick access to your frequently-used content. The Recent tab offers a handy way to load up documents you've just been working on, and these are neatly organized by date.

Viewing documents in Office Mobile is surprisingly clear and easy. Documents are optimized for small screen viewing and resize accordingly. Of course, reading Office docs, particularly Excel sheets, isn't great on a small screen (and there’s no support for tablets at the moment), but Office Mobile for Office 365 makes it as comfortable as possible. The pinch to zoom is smooth and effective for getting closer into big documents.

Once inside a Word document, you are assisted by the Outline view option, where you can quickly skip to a particular bullet point, chapter, or part of a document by scrolling through a list of markers. There's also a search option for if you quickly want to pinpoint a particular word or phrase.

Viewing options in Excel include the Outline view and Find, but are extended to include the ability to sort or filter data. The PowerPoint viewer doesn't include text search or filtering, but you can open a thumbnail panel where you can see a small preview of each slide and jump to the one you want.

Create and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint files

While viewing and reading documents is a breeze with Office Mobile, when it comes to making edits to your documents, the application falls short.

The app allows you to create and make edits to Word, Excel and Powerpoint docs and the formatting will be kept intact. There are safeguards built into the app that ensure you can't make changes to a document if it's already open in Office 365 on the web or the desktop, locking it for editing on one platform.

The scope of the editing you can do with Office Mobile is very limited. In the case of Word documents, there are only very basic formatting options. You can apply bold, italic, underline and strikethrough text, choose from just three text colors, applying highlights, and change the text size. In the case of changing size, there are only plus and minus buttons for changing, and you can't see the point size.

Other than these basic formatting options, there's very little you can change in a Word document using Office Mobile. There are no page layout options to speak of, and neither can you insert items into your documents. However, it is possible to add annotations to your document, which is good for collaboration.

In terms of Excel, again you have some basic formatting options, plus Undo/Redo functions, AutoSum and the ability to create basic charts from your data sheets.

To assist document creation, there are some Word and Excel templates included in Office Mobile, though again these are basic and limited to just three templates for each program.

A reduced user experience

The limitations of editing documents on a small screen device are obvious and perhaps Microsoft wasn't keen to pump Office Mobile full of editing features because it knows that most people won't be using their Android device as their main Office tool for creating and editing documents.

Editing documents in Office Mobile for Office 365 on an Android device is more of a smooth experience than it is on the iOS version of the app, where copy and paste can be fiddly and the contextual menus have a tendency to have a mind of their own. The user interface of the Android app feels more polished and intuitive.

The verdict

As a document viewer, Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers works very well and rivals Google Drive in this respect. However, the formatting and editing experience needs to be worked on in order to improve the usefulness of the app.

Opera Mobile Classic 12.1.8 - app

Opera Mobile Classic provides a reliable, feature-filled alternative to the built-in Android web browser.

Opera options

Essentially, Opera Mobile Classic looks and feels like Opera Mini for Android, retaining the same user interface and offering all the great features of that program. The app has been superseded by the more recent Opera Browser for Android, which features a fresher user interface which may appeal to certain people.

The main difference between the two browsers is the way web pages are rendered by the software. Opera Mini serves compressed versions of pages from the Opera servers in order to speed up loading times. Opera Mobile Classic on the other hand, renders the full HTML of the page, making it slower to load pages, but significantly improving the quality of images and other multimedia elements on the page. The Turbo option within Opera Mobile Classic lets you switch to the compressed page mode if you want to speed things up.

Packed with features

Features of Opera Mobile Classic include bookmarks, download manager, mobile or desktop views, and a Google search bar (unfortunately you can't change this to another search engine, though). The Opera Link feature in Opera Mobile Classic allows you to sync your bookmarks, start page, history, etc. with your desktop version of Opera.

The latest version of Opera Mobile Classic for Android now supports Flash content, as well as HTML 5 audio and video, making it great for enjoying interactive rich web content.
It would be neat if, like Firefox, Opera Mobile Classic included support for add-ons. The ability for third party developers to extend the functionalities of the app would be a very welcome one.

Touch that dial

You get a very comfortable user interface, with a Speed Dial feature, whereby you can set one-click shortcuts for up to nine of your favorite sites. Support for tabs means you can have several pages running and once, flicking between them using an elegant thumbnail preview bar.

Viewing and moving around pages with Opera Mobile Classic is a delight. You can pinch to zoom into an area of the page, then instantly snap back to full screen view with the touch of a button.

Unfortunately, I did experience several crashes testing the latest version of Opera Mobile Classic (12.1). Let's hope that these get ironed out in the next update to the app.

Worth a try

Opera Mobile Classic isn't the quickest of Android web browsers, but its slick interface design and useful features make it well worth a try.

yooSEND 1.0.2 - app

What’s new in yooSEND:

• Fast and Safe Transfer for photos, videos, mp3 music and documents between Android & iPhone & iPad by WiFi, LTE, 3G, 4G etc.

• Easy Browsing and File Management (rename, cut/paste, delete, sort files, video&music player)

• Dropbox integration (now you can send files to anyone, directly from Dropbox, without having to share them a link)

• Attach devices: Be the first person in the world that has all the devices in a single app. Add personal iOS, Android, tablet, smartphone devices (PCs and Mac soon)

• Pending mode: NOW you can accept files any time you want (at home, office, or when you have a better Internet connection)

• Push Notification

• Fast download & upload speed

• Music playback

• Video playback

• Documents viewer

Why users love yooSEND:

• Easy Browsing and File Management

• One of the most important features of yooSEND is that you cand send or receive files without having them stored somewhere

• You can send files to multiple contacts

• Badge number when selecting files and contacts

• Sorting and searching by file name, date or sender

• No file compression

• Allows "open in..." other apps

What’s best in yooSEND:

It is the first app in the World that allows you to:

- attach all yours devices to yooSEND app (iOS, Android ,tablets, smartphones, PCs and Mac soon)

- send files to anyone in the contacts list, directly from Dropbox, without having to share them a link

- have "Pending mode": accept/reject files any time you want

- download and upload files at the same time

- plus many other advantages

Yahoo! 4.2.5 - app

Yahoo! for Android is a news browser app that provides news and connects to the larger Yahoo! network. This release on Android coincides with an updated version on iPhone, both of which use Summly technology. The main feature of Yahoo! for Android is short news summaries.

This news feed can be personalized further by toggling on and off related topics found at the end of articles. There is also plenty of social integration such as importing your Facebook likes into favored news topics or sharing stories using Gmail. Both of these do require signing in to a Yahoo! ID, though. Lastly, you can use the app to search the web or browse for videos from YouTube and other sites.

What it does

The main feature of the mobile app is the Yahoo! News feed. The feed can include stories from sources such as Reuters, Access Hollywood, ABC, Healthy Living, and more. Each story includes the title, source, a link to read more, and a drop down menu to dislike or share (via Gmail, Facebook, or Bluetooth services). The dislike option will allow you dislike topics or remove stories from your feed. Many stories also include a summary provided by Yahoo! and a related image from the article. In some cases a stock image is provided, which can be confusing when it has nothing to do with the headline.

Tapping on the "Read more" option will take you to the full article. This often includes an image or video at the top, the news source, and when the story was posted. In the upper right-hand corner is a button to quickly share stories. By default Facebook and Gmail are options, but the app will search for other installed apps such as Google Drive or Google+. Related topics show up at the bottom of the article. If you’re using a Yahoo ID, you can either add topics as favorites or remove them from your feed.

A slight annoyance is that if you scroll too far down, you will be taken to the next related story without a way to quickly return to the previous story. Thankfully the page will snap slowly during this, allowing you to easily cancel the motion.

Customize your experience

The mobile Yahoo! app has many great options for customization. You can disable the visual story feed if you become tired of it. This will cause stories to appear in a simple list with just the headline, source, and possibly an icon sized image. If you don’t want to see every story you can select a specific section of articles ranging from business, politics, technology, and many others. The most impressive feature is personalizing your news feed. In the topics preferences menu you can change which topics you’ve already picked as “My topics” or add them to “Removed topics”.Lastly, you can sync your Facebook likes and interests which imports them into your topic lists. This feature is very convenient and will allow faster customization than having to choose individual topics.

Search and apps

Being a Yahoo! product, there is an option to search the web, naturally. You can browse websites, images, or videos from sites such as YouTube or Mevio. These searches open each page inside the Yahoo! app instead of transferring to another browser or app. Quality and load times of sites are generally fast, though it depends on your connection.

It would actually be convenient if the Yahoo! app detected other apps installed during your search and prompted switching to them. However, there is an extensive apps menu which lets you download Yahoo! related apps, such as Flickr or Yahoo! Messenger, from the Play Store and open them once installed.

Conclusion

The Yahoo! for Android app has a great set of customizable features. If you’re displeased with the visual summaries you can quickly turn them off while still retaining core information. If you really don’t care for the featured news stories, the ability to easily import Facebook likes and interests will make a truly personal news feed. Better yet, your favorite stories can easily be shared across social networks or other apps.

Despite some minor interface issues, the app offers an excellent way to check the latest news.

Download Yahoo! 4.2.5

Twitter 5.36.0 - app

Twitter, the official Android app for the service, has moved into version 3, presenting some pretty major interface changes.

Probably the biggest change to Twitter for Android is the appearance. It's really grown up, losing the multi-access homepage and launching instead straight into your timeline. It looks more sophisticated too, with a streamlined user interface while still using the recognizable blue header and black and white layout.

As far as Twitter for Android goes in terms of features, it parallels the online site, but sticks to the basics. The standard areas exist like the main timeline, @mentions, and your profile, but Twitter added a hashtag "#Discover" feature allowing you to browse what is trending. Tapping on a tweet now shows the @reply, retweet, favorite, or share options and lists who has performed any of the options.

Among Twitter’s nicer features is a cool tool to search your telephone contacts for Twitter users, and varied suggested users for you to add. You can also modify your profile pretty well from the app, while Twitter for Android also lets you create as many public and private lists as you want.

Twitter for Android supports multiple accounts, easily switchable from the taskbar. The configuration settings are still limited, especially in comparison to apps like Plume and Tweetcaster. Even so, if you’re a low-spec Twitter user who likes to keep things simple, the official Twitter app for Android might be right up your street.

Twitter for Android does its job very well, focusing on working like the online site.

Download Twitter 5.36.0

DondeEsta 9.7 - app

DondeEsta has been tested by Softonic, but it still doesn't have a review in English.

Download DondeEsta 9.7

Boat Browser 6.3 - app

Boat Browser is a quick, comfortable browser for Android phones that gives even the market leaders a run for their money.

Everything about Boat Browser is easy. The interface is large and crisp. Swipe gestures work well, the icons are large enough even for bigger-handed people to manage easily and the zoom feature is second to none. It handles video well, and has a set of both normal and advanced options that should keep both all levels of user pretty happy.

As you would expect, Boat Browser supports tabs. These are easy to manage, with a nice tab browsing feature available by clicking the bottom-right icon on the screen. The options in this bottom bar are useful. The star allows you to manage your favorites, which the + allows you to perform various options on your current page, such as setting as a homepage, adding to favorites or sharing.

Boat Browser also has a few features that you don't see in all browsers that definitely make the experience a bit smoother. For instance, there's a night mode, screenshot function and the ability to exit the app completely, in our opinion an undervalued option in many apps. You can also move Boat Browser to the SD card, lightening the load even more.

Boat Browser is an excellent browser option for those who want an all-round high performer.

Download Boat Browser 6.3

Dolphin Browser 11.3.0 - app

Dolphin Browser is a fast and easy-to-use web browser for Android phones. It is packed with useful features to help you navigate the web more efficiently.

Dolphin Browser makes it easy to browse for sites and enjoy their content on your mobile, thanks to its excellent browsing features. Pages are opened in the form of tabs (you can have up to eight open at once). You can flick between sites effortlessly by clicking on the tabs or sliding the screen down to access the thumbnail window view, where previews of all the currently-open sites are displayed.

Other helpful browsing aids in Dolphin Browser include a bookmarks panel, which slides out from the left of the screen, giving you quick access to your favorite pages. You can easily customize the order of the bookmarks by clicking and dragging them around the list.

Dolphin Browser includes a Speed Dial for fast access to commonly visited pages. There's also a Webzine feature for reading Facebook, Twitter and news feeds in a comfortable way, through timelines with thumbnails.

Touch friendly

Dolphin Browser features full multi-touch support. You can navigate around sites with the flick of a finger, zoom in by tapping or pinching (a feature which is sorely missing in Opera Mini and Firefox Mobile.

On the subject of touch, this latest version of Dolphin Browser HD adds even more support for touch gestures. This allows you to draw a letter or a symbol on the screen to access a particular site or perform a function. For example, writing an 'f' will open Facebook; or drawing left and right arrows will move you back or forward through pages. You can even create your own custom gestures!

Getting around quickly

Handily, Dolphin Browser includes address auto-complete, which speeds up URL entry by suggesting likely matches from your bookmarks or from the web. There is no search bar to speak of in Dolphin Browser, but if you type a word into the URL bar and hit Enter you'll be taken to a Google search results page. There's even a voice search feature powered by Google, which works very well.

Dolphin Browser is very quick and it includes full support for HTML5. Unlike Skyfire, Dolphin Browser doesn't support Flash video within the browser, and instead it'll prompt you to launch a separate player.

Plug in to new features

There aren't a huge amount of advanced features built into Dolphin Browser, which may be part of the reason for its streamlined performance. However, you can beef up its capabilities by installing add-ons, which are accessible from a slide-out panel on the right of the screen. Among the downloadable extras are a password manager, YouTube search, ad blocker and Google Translate.

Given its slick performance and ease of use, we rank Dolphin Browser as the best alternative browser for Android.

Download Dolphin Browser 11.3.0

NASA App 1.52 - app

NASA App has been tested by Softonic, but it still doesn't have a review in English.

Download NASA App 1.52

English for Kids 2.0 - app

English for Kids is a free application for learning English dedicated for children. Easy to use interface and interesting graphics help in studying English. There are several lessons that bring various topics - such as animals, body, clothes, colors, fruits and vegetables.

All words may be read by the default lector. Tests give you the chance for the consolidation of knowledge and checking out your skills.

Easy to use interface and interesting graphics make the studying of English fun for can each child.

All words may be read by the default lector. Tests give you the chance for the consolidation of knowledge and checking out your skills.

It is dedicated for children of any age. App may be also useful for parents and students who want to learn English with pictures.

Horoscope 5.1 - app

Horoscope is a very lightweight utility that was created in order to provide you with a quick means of reading the astral predictions for any horoscope sign. Horoscope provides daily Horoscope, Zodiac, Numerology, Love, Wellness, and Career readings from your Android phone.

Horoscope is simple, clean and lightweight. Horoscope is ad-free and does not have any annoying notifications. Horoscope is fast at processing requests and does not waste any extra resource from your device.

This app is suitable for all maturity levels. Any enthusiast of astrology are welcome to use Horoscope.

Plagiarism Checker 2.8 - app

This duplicate content checker is a must-have app for students, teachers, writers or bloggers. Scan your essay, article, term paper or dissertation with a single tap of your smartphone. Turnitin free alternative. NOTE: This is a HTML5 app. You must have an external file explorer installed to upload your files.

This is the one and only plagiarism detection software available on Android platform. Check your text, file or URL with a single tap. 5 search engines to choose from.

This app is for students, teachers, bloggers, writers, SEO companies, schools and universities.

Amritbani Satguru Ravidass ji 1.1 - app

Amritbani Guru Ravidass Ji is a holy book of the Ravidassia Religion. Guru Ravidass ji was a socio-religious reformer, a thinker, a theosophist, a humanist, a poet, a traveler, a pacifist and a spiritual figure before whom even head-priests of Varanasi (Benaras) lay prostrate to pay homage.

Idea for this app is to bring this AmritBani easily accessible through devices. After installing this app, the Amrit bani is installed on the SDCard. Feel free to write for feature updates that you wish to see in the App.

Features :

1) Easily readable.

2) Offline PDF

Search Keywords :- Amritbani Satguru Ravidass ji, Jai Gurudev, Amrit Bani Shri Guru Ravidass Ji Ki, Bani Shri Guru Ravidas Ji, Amrit bani shri guru ravidass ji

Features :

1) Easily readable.

2) Offline PDF

Search Keywords :- Amritbani Satguru Ravidass ji, Jai Gurudev, Amrit Bani Shri Guru Ravidass Ji Ki, Bani Shri Guru Ravidas Ji, Amrit bani shri guru ravidass ji, Amrit bani Satguru Ravidass ji (in Punjabi).

The Amritbani Guru Ravidass Ji contains 240 hymns by Guru Ravidass from the teachings of Guru Ravidass where it falls under the following Ragas â€" Siri(1), Gauri (5), Asa(6), Gujari(1), Sorath(7), Dhanasari(3), Jaitsari(1), Suhi(3), Bilaval(2), Gaund(2), Ramkali(1), Maru(2), Kedara(1), Bhairau(1), Basant(1), and Malhar(3). It contains 140 shabads, 40 pade, painti akhri, bani haftawar, bani pandran tithi, baran maas updesh, dohra, saand bani, anmol vachan (milni de samen), etc...

GasBuddy 2.15 - app

GasBuddy is an application that shows the prices of gasoline in your area.

Useful for drivers in the United States and Canada, GasBuddy uses the location of the Android device to collect user-submitted gasoline prices.

Separated into the different types of gasoline, GasBuddy can show both a list and Google Maps of the locations of the gas stations. The service is dependent on gas price submittal by users, but the prices are updated consistently.

It is easy to see the difference between the prices of gas stations. Signing into GasBuddy allows users to input gas prices and gain points. The app is very useful when in unfamiliar areas or when you are looking for the cheapest gas in the specific area.

Simple and effective, GasBuddy is an excellent tool for commuters.

Download GasBuddy 2.15

The Weather Channel 5.0 - app

As the official app from the cable TV channel, The Weather Channel is your perfect weather consultant, giving you all the information you need so that you won't be left out in the cold.

All-purpose weather app

The Weather Channel is a simple but highly navigable app that gives you just the right amount of weather information to help you prepare for the day ahead. The homepage shows current conditions, from which you can swipe down to get more detailed information including humidity, visibility and UV index.

Swipe down further to get an hourly or 10-day forecast, as well as Radar info, an especially cool feature that outlines cloud coverage, rain, or snow, relative temperatures, or UV index, laid out across a map.

Clicking More on any of these sections will give you detailed information about current or expected weather conditions. Unlike the iOS version, the Android version also has a section for videos that lets you watch weather-related news from the The Weather Channel.

Another great feature of The Weather Channel app is the social function. It lets you report the weather from where you are with the option to add photos, showing real-time data from other users. If you choose to report the weather conditions in your location, you have to wait at least 15 minutes before you can report again.

If you're worried about severe weather, you can get alerts of extreme weather for any of your saved locations, as well as for pollen.

Sleek as ice

The interface of The Weather Channel is sleek and minimal, with great background images and nice tiled sections which you can easily swipe through to find exactly what you're looking for. You can also change the settings so that the weather is reported in metric or imperial units.

Aside from it's great interface, the app is really easy to navigate, and most of the options are accessed directly by scrolling through the homepage. To add cities, simply click on + in the top right hand corner of the screen; switch them by either swiping left or right.

Never leave home without your phone... or your jacket

If you want a bit more information than what your mobile device's stock weather app can give, The Weather Channel is a trusted source that's created a great looking app to help you get all your weather-related news in the palm of your hand.

Download The Weather Channel 5.0

Last Minute Travel Deals 1.5.7.2 - app

Save up to 60% off your travel cost with exclusive mobile-only deals. Wholesale pricing usually reserved for travel agents.

Book hotels, flights and activities on the go to anywhere and anytime.

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single app

• Thinking where to sleep tonight? Choose from 120,000+ hotels in over 4,500 cities worldwide

• Time to fly away? 175 carriers are waiting for you

• Isn’t time to have fun? World’s coolest activities are few clicks away

HOTEL DEALS TONIGHT

• Featured LMT exclusive mobile-only deals

• Up to 60% off with Last minute deals for tonight and tomorrow

• View TripAdvisor® hotel reviews, star rating and recommended hotels

FLIGHT

• Book, Sort and Filer by price, duration, stops, airlines and length

ACTIVITIES

• Over 10,000 activities in over 4,500 cities

• Extraordinaire worldwide variety of activities such as: Sightseeing tours, Theater, shows, Concerts, theme parks, local transfers , Restaurants and more

• Watch activity video’s for a snapshot preview in addition to full attraction information.

Don’t be a stranger… lets connect!

24/7 customer support by phone or email

Citymapper 3.13 - app

Citymapper is one of the best transit apps on the market. Available in a host of cities, this app integrates virtually all of a city's transit options into one handy app!

Travel options from A to Z

Citymapper is probably best for the endless number of transportation options available to you. Your journey starts by clicking 'Get me somewhere'. You can choose to 'Start' at your own location, or when planning ahead, start from a different location. Switch to the 'End' tab, type in where you want to go, and click 'Get Route'.

Citymapper gives you the estimated time and cost for walking, cycling (including the number of calories you'll burn), suggested subway routes, suggested bus routes, a bus only or subway only route, the estimated cost and time of taking a taxi, and a rain-safe route to battle any unrulyweather. It even provides a few quirky options like Catapult and Jetpack. A built in weather report gives you the weather conditions at your destination. Citymapper also contains an in-app map, a city subway map for reference, as well as line status and weekend closures.

Finding your way

Clicking on a bus, subway or train route will give you live departure times to help you plan your journey in advance. Clicking on the cycling option will give you detailed info on the cycle hire stations near your start and end locations (if available in your city), as well as the availability of cycles at the station. The cab option is integrated with Hailo, so if you want to take a taxi, you'll be taken straight to Hailo within the app.

An added bonus in Citymapper is the 'Get me home' function. Simply tap on the button and the GPS locator will give you directions to your saved home address from wherever you are in the city. A similar idea is applied to the 'Get me to work' function.

You can sign-up to save locations and your data via Facebook or Google+, as well as sync it across the web platform and other devices.

Arriving on time

Citymapper feels very intuitive and has a really nice interface. The layout of different travel options all on one screen makes it incredibly convenient to compare travel times and prices. The live updates for bus, subway, and train are really reliable, and the map does a good job of giving clear directions.

In a league of its own

Citymapper utilizes all the open travel data available in cities like London, New York, and Berlin, and it does so really well, accurately predicting travel times and costs. Citymapper makes it easy to get around any city, easily replacing at least four travel apps with one. As it continues to expand to more cities, the layout, design, and functionality of the app definitely make it one of the best thought-out travel apps on the market.

Foursquare 2014.12.03 - app

Foursquare is a location app that allows you to check into locations, compete with friends, and find places to go.

Available for more platforms than competitor Gowalla, and having a larger community, Foursquare should be the best of the location based apps. However, when you first install it, it can be hard to see what to do with it. Once you've found or invited some friends, and checked in at a few locations, Foursquare begins to make sense.

Foursquare allows your to post mini reviews of places you've been to, and collect badges - like achievements in video games. You can see where your friends are too, and as checking in to locations gives you points, you can see who's winning.

Foursquare is a mix between a social game and useful tool. This type of app only works if you can get enough of your friends to use it. You can find places to go and things to do, read user recommendations and sometimes even get free gifts from places you check in.

The interface is simple to navigate, although it's a bit dry in its design. Competing app Gowalla looks much better. Despite this, as long as Foursquare's community is larger there are more places to find, with more user tips and more incentives to become the mayor of your favorite spots. Competing with your friends can be fun, even if it might feel like you're turning your entire life into an RPG.

As it's community grows, Foursquare is becoming a really useful service, great for finding friends and things to do wherever you are.

Google Earth 8.0.1.2311 - app

Google Earth is a monster of a program. Now you can take it with you wherever you go in this version of Google Earth for Android.

The Good

Google Earth makes a great first impression. The program is controlled completely from the touchscreen, so users with larger screens are in luck. Tap to zoom in,pinch to zoom out, and use two fingers to rotate and tilt. It couldn't be simpler. There's almost nowhere on the globe that you can't access with Google Earth, so swipe and zoom until you've surveyed the whole planet. There's also a search option for more direct access.

You'll also find more features that will take your Google Earth experience to another level. My Location will take you to where you are using the app, while under the Layers option you'll be able to enable and disable secondary sources of information, like Wikipedia and photos. Under Google Earth's settings, you'll be able to specify more technical details, like whether or not to use your phone's hardware sensors for navigation and the ability to limit the cache, so Google Earth doesn't suck up your resources.

The Bad

Unfortunately, Google Earth just doesn't follow up on its excellent first impression. Although the scale of the app is awesome - in the most literal sense - it doesn't measure up in terms of usability. Navigation can be sticky, especially when the Look Around feature is enabled, and close-up graphics aren't crisp. The 3D feature for viewing famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and Taj Mahal doesn't always work, and when it does there are often graphics issues when zoomed in.

The Layers feature is also wanting. Although Google Earth offers three Layers - which you can enable and disable at will - they just don't work well with the interface becomes unusably crowded with indistinct and fiddly icons.

These usability problems are disappointing. Google Earth is an amazing concept and works fantastically on other devices. Unfortunately, Android isn't yet one of them.

Around the world in 80 seconds

Google Earth for Android is a great idea that unfortunately has some unforgivable usability issues on Android.

Improvements

People returning to Google Earth may notice some improvements since 8.0.0. The interface has been simplified, there are now better 3D images, clearer maps, and smoother transitions between layers - but still none of it is perfect. Support for Google Drive is also now included, allowing you to view KML and KMZ files.

Download Google Earth 8.0.1.2311

Talkray 2.12 - app

Talkray - Free Calls and Text, developed by the authors of the excellent app TiKL, is an app to make calls and send texts, very similar to WhatsApp and LINE.

What can you do with Talkray?

The main purpose of Talkray is to let you make calls and send instant messages to your contacts from one single app.

Calls can be made to either a single contact or a group. The text message options include the usual features we find in similar apps: you can send pictures, videos, audio files or your location on the map.

All in one place

Talkray’s design isn’t as attractive as, for example, LINE. But it does show all the features on the same screen (call, send message or attachment), which can be easily accessed from a side tab.

Just like with other similar apps, the problem is finding friends who also have the app installed. Although it’s very easy to add contacts and you can even send messages to your friends to convince them to install it, you’ll have to fight against apps that have been in the market for longer.

Talkray works with Android Wear

Like something straight out of Star Trek, you can now send voice messages by talking into your Android Wear device. You can also send auto-reply chats with your Android Wear device.

An app that has everything

Talkray has many interesting features: it has lots of options, works well and is easy to use. It’s also very fast and very simple to use right from the start.

Apps like Talkray don’t have it easy competing against other big ones in the market. But if you are looking into trying an app that combines calls and messages in one same screen, this is one of the most interesting ones you can find right now.

Kik Messenger 7.8.1.141 - app

Kik Messenger has been tested by Softonic, but it still doesn't have a review in English.

Download Kik Messenger 7.8.1.141

Yahoo Mail 4.7.2 - app

Yahoo Mail is designed to provide you with fast and easy access to your Yahoo! email account from your Android device - without having to load the mobile web site.

What you would expect

The Yahoo Mail app is free and supports notifications, meaning that you'll get instant alerts when you receive new mail.

Yahoo Mail for Android is simple but complete: it provides fast access to your folders (i.e. inbox, drafts, sent mail and spam), allows you to access your address book, compose emails, and attach photos or files to your messages. You can also use the Yahoo Mail client for Android to organize your messages into folders, a process which is much easier to do than it is using the web version of Yahoo Mail.

One boon of the Yahoo Mail app is that it lets you add multiple Yahoo accounts so you can switch between your inboxes in one place.

Besides allowing you to check your email, Yahoo Mail includes an 'Apps' section, where you can check news and weather from within the application, which is cool.

Looks good

Yahoo Mail offers a comfortable ride in terms of navigating your email. Its interface is easily readable and clearly laid-out. Just like the Gmail app for Android, folders and options appear in a panel on the right with your list of mails showing next to this. Tap on a mail header and the email will be displayed in a preview pane on the right. Options for replying, trashing, blocking, starring, etc. appear at the bottom of the email pane.

A nice feature of Yahoo Mail, carried over from the web version, is its support for themes. There are several attractive designs to choose from in a range of color schemes, so you can tailor your email client to suit your mood.

Yahoo Mail is well optimized for Android tablets, and it's a very comfortable experience.

Yahoo Mail's shiny, attractive interface masks a few niggly problems under the hood of the app. For instance, the spam filtering of Yahoo Mail is questionable. Often, I found genuine emails in the spam folder, while junk was littering my inbox. For me, spam is definitely more of an issue in Yahoo Mail than it is in Gmail or Outlook, and many users report similar problems on Yahoo Mail's Google Play page.

Another annoyance of the Yahoo Mail app is the constant refreshing every time you navigate your inbox, where the app checks for new mail. Sometimes you have to wait a few seconds for this to finish, which is unacceptable in a modern mobile email client.

What's new in version 4.0.2?

The latest version of Yahoo Mail for Android plugs you in to various Yahoo services to keep you updated on what's going on. So, you can now access news, weather, sports scores, videos, and more from within the mail client. It's a handy way of staying in touch, much like you can do with Google Now.

Should you ditch Gmail for Yahoo Mail?

If you use Gmail at the moment, Yahoo Mail sin't good enough to warrant switching to. The app is well designed and has some useful features but the spam filtering isn't good enough and the app has some niggly performance issues.

Download Yahoo Mail 4.7.2

VIPole Secure Messenger 1.5.11 - app

VIPole is a secure messaging application powered by strong encryption technologies that perfectly guard sensitive communications and files from prying eyes and surveillance efforts. VIpole strongly encrypts instant messages, group chats, voicemail, voice calls, video calls and files so that no third-party is able to listen to conversations or tap into a message or file.

VIPole provides a big set of additional secure features as encrypted password manager, encrypted notes, encrypted calendar with reminders, encrypted task manager, encrypted local and cloud file storage.

VIPole uses strong encryption technologies and special encryption key management system. All encryption happens locally on user device and only the intended user can decrypt and read the message or receive a file. Even VIPole employees cannot get access user files because all user data arrives on VIPole server already encrypted. And only the user knows the keys that can decrypt it.

VIPole is a full featured cross platform application and you can use one account across all your devices ( Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Android).VIPole is designed for every person who is concerned about secure online communications and file exchange over the internet.

WhatsApp Messenger 2.11.432 - app

WhatsApp Messenger allows you to send text messages, as well as images, video and audio, using your mobile device's Internet connection.

Powerful and complete alternative to SMS

WhatsApp Messenger replaces traditional SMS messaging with a free instant messaging system over 3G/4G or WiFi. 

With WhatsApp Messenger you can speak with your friends through a classic chat-style interface. You can chat with just one person, or several contacts at once, up-to groups of 30 people. It's a good way to save sending lots of messages and to communicate quickly with several people at once.

In terms of options, WhatsApp Messenger allows you to send photos, audio files, and videos to your contacts. You can also share a map of your current locations or details of one of your contacts.

Of course, emoticons are an important part of any chat app, and WhatsApp Messenger comes with plenty. You can use those that come with the app, or install new WhatsApp emoticons through applications such as Smileys for Chat.

Users can edit images and photos before sending them to friends. The image editing features include rotate, crop and add notes, as well as adding comments and captions. Users can also now archive conversations and message storage reliability has been improved.

One of the most notable recent additions to WhatsApp Messenger is its Push to Talk messaging feature. In the style of a walkie talkie, WhatsApp adds the option to record and share voice messages in real time, be they large or small. It's the same type of function offered by apps such as Voxer and Zello.

Another recent edition is WhatsApp Messenger's support of Android's smart watch operating system, Android Wear. So if you have an Android Wear watch can now check your messages without having to take your phone out. The feature supports long message viewing, stacked messages with slide navigation, and the standard reply via voice option.

How does WhatsApp work?

Chatting with WhatsApp Messenger requires both you and your contact have the application installed. Once you've installed the app on your device, you can see straight away which of your contacts are using WhatsApp, then start chatting to them.

It's worth mentioning that although the sending of messages is free in WhatsApp Messenger, the application requires to pay a subscription fee of 99 cents per year after the first year.

WhatsApp is a hugely popular messaging network, and you're probably more likely to find other friends who use it than who use other rival messaging apps. This is a generalization of course, and it could be that you have more friends using apps like KakaoTalk, LINE, Kik Messenger, or Viber. These apps behave more or less the same as WhatsApp Messenger but have their own distinct features and quirks. It's worth checking out our reviews of these apps to find out how they differ.

What's new in the latest version?

WhatsApp has introduced what is likely to be a very controversial (but much requested) feature: the ability to see when the messages you sent have been read. Two blue ticks mean that your message has been read by the recipient or that all recipients in a group have read the message.

Get the latest version of WhatsApp

You should note that the version of WhatsApp Messenger on Google Play is not always the most up-to-date. We recommend that you consult the official web site to get the latest version of WhatsApp.

A simple way to chat for free

There are many similar apps to WhatsApp Messenger out there, and some are even better. Yet, such is the popularity of WhatsApp that it is an essential download for your mobile.

Skype 5.1.0.56619 - app

The Android version of Skype allows you to make free or cheap voice and video calls on your phone.

Features

This mobile version of the popular VOIP app uses a WiFi or 3G connection (WiFi only in the US) to connect you to friends and family via Skype. Besides calling, you can use the text chat feature to exchange instant messages with other Skype users.

Just like the desktop version, Skype for Android is very simple to set up and use. Once you've registered or signed in, you'll be given a virtual tour explaining exactly what you can do with the app. When getting started, you can choose to sync contacts. Contacts can be grouped, which makes things much easier if you have lots of friends.

There are still some features of the desktop version of Skype that are lacking from the app, such as group calls.

Usability

Skype's user interface is very clear and straightforward. There are icons at the bottom of the screen for calling and chatting, and a context menu for adding people or numbers. The main window in Skype 4 for Android is dedicated to contacts, allowing you to display all Skype contacts, favorite contacts and your recent activity. You can switch between these lists by swiping left or right across the screen.

Skype for Android includes video calling, allowing you to chat face-to-face with your buddies, even if they are using another platform. The app includes SMS support, allowing you to send text messages to mobile phones through it.

The interface of the tablet version of Skype for Android is really attractive and offers you easy access to all your contacts. The video chat window is excellent. It lets you display the sidebar during a call, so you can access other functions while you talk on video.

A problem with Skype on the Android is that it can't be closed very easily because there is no Quit option. Instead, you have to kill the app using an external task manager. The fact that it stays running is especially annoying given the fact that the app zaps your battery very quickly.

Recent versions of Skype for Android have brought enhancements designed to improve battery usage of the application. According to the developer these 'aggressive battery savings' will allow users to leave Skype running without any noticeable effect on battery life.

Our tests seem to back up this claim. Skype 4.5 was commanding an average 3% of our total battery consumption, whereas this dropped to an average of 1.7% of the overall consumption after the update to 4.7. Benchmarking was done using GSam Battery Monitor on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Conclusion

Skype for Android is very useful and offers an easy way to make cheap calls. However, it's still generally not as cheap as some other VOIP services.

BBM 2.5.1.46 - app

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) is an instant messaging application. Originally only available on BlackBerry devices, it's now available in an Android version so that you can communicate between BlackBerry, Android and iOS devices. BBM allows you to send free messages, photos, voice memos, to participate in group conversations and much more.

Stay in touch with loved ones

After getting your PIN code, i.e. your BlackBerry Messenger ID, the application will let you communicate with your friends without restriction.

Blackberry Messenger lets you send messages, voice memos, photos, and files. It also informs you as soon as your messages have been received and read by your contacts. The BBM application is permanently enabled and connected so that you don’t need to open the app to get notifications.

With Blackberry Messenger groups, the messaging app lets you share images, lists, and meetings with members of a group (up to 30 individuals). As for multiple chat, it’s useful to get in touch with multiple friends at the same time, and you can make use of a whole range of emoticons to send in your conversations.

BBM also provides functionality for sending bulk messages. With the option to broadcast messages, you can easily send a message to several BBM contacts simultaneously.

Finally, Blackberry Messenger lets you create your own profile using your avatar (picture or animated GIF) and gives you the ability to post statuses. You can change your profile by clicking on your avatar.

A BlackBerry 10 interface

With Blackberry Messenger, BlackBerry seems to want to provide a similar experience on all platforms. The interface of the application is the same for all versions and imitates the BlackBerry 10 style and codes. On Android, the interface seems slightly out of place; for example, you’ll notice the presence of a "previous" button that duplicates the one offered on the screen of the Nexus or many other Android devices. BBM features are nevertheless easy to access, thanks to a list of tabs at the bottom of the interface.

BBM arrives on Gingerbread

The most recent update of BlackBerry Messenger adds support for Android 2.3. At last users of the Gingerbread flavor of Android can chat via BBM on their device. This means that millions of people with lower-end devices will have access. 

Good news for Android as well as BlackBerry users

The arrival of Blackberry Messenger is good news for Android users but perhaps even more so for BlackBerry users. If the latter were only able to use the application with those friends who own a BlackBerry, they might not have had many contacts on their BBM list.

As for the application, Blackberry Messenger proves to be quite comprehensive, with a range of good features comparable to those found on competing applications like WhatsApp, LINE, and Viber. It only lacks VoIP and a more flexible interface.

Download BBM 2.5.1.46