Reviews - 38/69 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Oct

Game Review: Shadowgun Is The Most Advanced Shooter On Android To Date, And It's Out Now

Posted by David Ruddock in Games, Reviews

Be sure to check out our Shadowgun Giveaway pack post, too - you could win an Galaxy Tab 8.9, a Jambox, and a $25 AMEX gift card!

Shadowgun is a game we've been following since its announcement for Android earlier this year. A couple weeks back, we received a preview build to test the game out (that link contains a gameplay video as well). Now, I've played the full version of the game and can report my findings more completely.

My conclusion? Shadowgun takes Android gaming to the next level, and while it's not without its flaws, it sets the bar very high for the somewhat low $5 game price point.

Oct

[Hunt For The Best Dialer, Part 7] Contapps Contacts & Dialer Is An Undoubtedly Impressive, Beautiful Dialer Replacement

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Hunt For The Best Dialer

Continuing on the quest for the perfect dialer to replace Android's stock phone application, I've come across Contapps Contacts & Dialer, an app I had never heard of until I began scouring the market. For a free dialer app, it has a lot to offer, and I'm surprised that it isn't more popular.

At A Glance

Contapps is a dialer replacement that is simple, practical, and well-designed, with enough extra features to make it feel new. While it may have a couple of redundancies or inconsistencies, it's definitely a great dialer, and definitely has a shot at being my everyday dialer solution (at least until I get my hands on Ice Cream Sandwich).

Oct

[Review] ZAGGfolio For Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1: A Poor Man's Transformer Dock... Sort Of

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Reviews

Last Updated: November 4th, 2011

I have a confession to make: I'm incredibly jealous of Transformer owners. Not because of the tablet itself, but the super-sick laptop dock. Don't get me wrong -- I love the tablet, too, but that dock just does it for me. It's functional, useful, and brings things to the Transformer that I can only wish my Galaxy Tab 10.1 had.

All bonuses aside, one of the core features of the Transformer's dock is, of course, the keyboard. For web surfing, checking email, and light social networking, a keyboard-less tablet is fine. But for those of us who use tablets for more than that, a keyboard is almost a requisite.

Oct

[Review] Basemark OS Prepared To Bring Rightware's Industrial Grade Benchmarking To Android

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

Pretty much the first thing that gets done to a new Android device when it hits the market is benchmarking. The Android community seems to be obsessed with benchmarking their devices over and over, and comparing the results to other devices. Personally I've always found this practice to be a curiosity at best, mainly because apps such as Quadrant give somewhat nebulous scores, which are hard to compare objectively, and offer little in the way of exact measurements. Rightware, a well known provider of benchmarking tools for various platforms, is looking to disambiguate the benchmarking process, however, with Basemark OS for Android.

Oct

[Hunt For The Best Dialer, Part 6] Angel Dialer Offers An Alternative To The Stock Dialer For Those Who Like Simplistic, Pre-Defined Interfaces

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Hunt For The Best Dialer

Joining the vast crowd of dialer replacements in the Android Market, our hunt has brought us to Angel Dialer, an uncomplicated app that effectively replaces the stock Android dialer, but which may have compromised necessary functionality for a no-frills implementation.

At A Glance

While Angel Dialer takes a concerted stance against superfluous features, its simplicity is not always a plus. While its features work, and it provides the same basic functionality we've seen before, it is lacking a few things that would take it up a level, and make it a decent dialer replacement. As it stands, I wouldn't say it's in the running for my day-to-day dialer app, but it does have some positive points.

Oct

[Review] The T-Mobile Galaxy S II: Beauty Is Only Skin Deep, But The Bloatware Goes On Forever

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Galaxy S II, Reviews, T-Mobile

Finally it's T-Mobile's turn to take a swing at the Samsung Galaxy S II, almost six months after the rest of the world. No adjective soup for this variant; its official name is, plainly, the "T-Mobile Galaxy S II." Formerly known as the "Hercules," this is the misfit in the GSII family. In its heart pumps a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, instead of the normal Samsung Exynos. So it's not just a carbon copy of all those other GSIIs. My initial impressions were posted a few days ago, and since then I've had some time to see if this thing was really worth the wait.

Oct

Case Review: OtterBox Commuter For The DROID BIONIC - If You Truly Need A Case, Buy This One

Posted by David Ruddock in Bionic, Motorola, Other Reviews, Reviews

I hate phone cases. When I bought my Nexus One back in March of 2010, the first thing I did with my very first smartphone was head over to Amazon and start searching for a cool and convenient way to protect it. So I bought some leather ordeal with a flip cover and all sorts of gimmickry, and I hated it. I used it for 2 days, and since then, it has occupied my box of unwanted electronics and related accessories. It was probably one of the worst $25 I ever spent. I swore off cases from that day forward.

Enter OtterBox.

Oct

[Keyboard App Shootout Part 2] Swiftkey X Wants To Read Your Mind... And Everything Else You've Ever Written

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Features, Keyboard Shootout, Reviews

The Keyboard App Shootout is back! In today's crosshairs: Swiftkey X.

Swiftkey's driving theory is that, with enough information about you, it can predict what you want to type. Seriously. They even use the phrase "mind-reading" on their website. How do they expect to get to "mind-reading" levels? Well, they basically want to scan everything you've ever written. Swiftkey can mine your text messages, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, and even your blog's RRS feed for sweet, sweet data about your typing habits. They feed all this data though a "ground-breaking artificial intelligence engine that uses word context and personalized language models to think about words like you do".

Oct

[Game Review] Musaic Box by HeroCraft Takes Hidden Object To A New Level

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Game Reviews, Games, Reviews

The same developers who brought the kitsch hit Farm Frenzy to Android have recently released what they're calling their best game ever: Musaic Box - a game that successfully combines the hidden object and puzzle genres, and adds some truly unique twists that make for a dynamic, interesting experience.

At A Glance

The very first thing I noticed about Musaic Box was the stunning visual style. The environments are clearly polished, with an astonishing level of detail, and almost everything you'd expect to be interactive actually is. The gameplay is challenging, but not unmanageable. Since Musaic mixes in puzzle elements to its hidden object base, the pace feels steady and the game stays interesting.

Oct

[Hunt For The Best Dialer, Part 5] DW Contacts & Phone & Dialer: A Little Cluttered, But A Powerful Option Nonetheless

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Hunt For The Best Dialer

From developer DWP, DW Contacts & Phone & Dialer (hereafter referred to as DW Contacts) makes our fifth entry in the hunt for the best dialer, combining a slew of features into one versatile (if a little clumsy) interface.

At A Glance

The first thing I notice about most apps is their visual design. DW Contacts was no different in this regard, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. DW doesn't offer anything really new in the design department, except for the ability to change the colors, transparency, and font size of pretty much any element of the app. This is nice, but nowhere near as flexible as the theming we've seen with certain other dialers.