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5 free HD video players for Android you should try

With the proliferation of high definition video – whether streaming or in file form – available for Android devices, and with the ever-improving video performance and higher video resolutions being shipped with handsets and tablets, one would now start to understand the need of a great media player application that will be able to handle such content. Given that the stock Android players that come together with your new devices would probably be able to handle most of the file types out there, it would be unbecoming of any user to not look around the Google Play Store and see the multitude of options – free options at that! – available. So we took it upon ourselves to give you our top 5 free HD video apps.

Moboplayer

MoboPlayer_Banner

Any respectable discussion about free media players will honestly not be complete without mentioning Moboplayer, as it has been one of the most popular free media players out there for quite a bit of time now. MoboPlayer supports a lot of the video file formats that are rampant in the Internet, including ones that your device might not normally support, this through a feature called software decoding. The player itself also supports multiple audio tracks, subtitles – even multiple onscreen subtitles, and media streaming to media and home entertainment servers. The player takes some time in opening HD video files – especially 1080p ones – but it is rarely more than 3 seconds. With our Samsung Galaxy S3 Alpha (SC-03E) test bed – 4.8-inch 1280x720 screen, 1.6Ghz Exynos processor, Mali-400MP graphics, 2GB RAM – there was no visible lag opening a 1080p MP4 file.

It is available free the Google Play Store, with ad support.

MX Player

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One of the more substantial free media players out there, great for general purpose video viewing, is MX Player. Using this app, you get a feeling that the developers chose to put in just that right balance between ease-of-use and robust features. The video viewer itself is sleek and logical, and the app supports most popular formats. For better format support, there is a codec download available, both from the developers, or you may choose to use any other codecs out there. There are gestures galore, and pinch-to-zoom. You have access to subtitle options, aspect ratio control and other stuff just from the main screen, while a lot more tweaks can be discovered in the settings menu. No lagging on this one as well, the software and hardware decoding holds up well. And since this is a free version, there will be ads, but the experience was altogether unobtrusive and tolerable.

Download from Google Play Store here.

Vplayer

vplayer

Vplayer is a simple approach to a media playing. It lacks the bells and whistles of most premium players and even like Moboplayer and MX Player, but if you want a straight up video player, this is one of the “lighter” media players out there. It supports the common file formats, and then some. Vplayer will also detect all your folders that contain video files and display them in folder view, but there are no ways of filtering or organizing your content. One of the cool things about Vplayer is that it lets you copy and paste links out of Youtube and Vimeo and play them on Vplayer.

Download free from Google Play.

DicePlayer

Dice-Player

DicePlayer is another feature filled player that leverages on a streamlined and uncluttered viewing window, with some straight up features available. When viewing your movie, the controls for view lock, playback speed controller, audio track and subtitle support, and aspect ratio adjustment is immediately available. DicePlayer even has controls for subtitle sync calibration, for those times when annoying subtitles are just not synced with your movie file. Finally, Dice Network playback support allows users to push their device-based media to media servers and home networks over Samba filesharing, FTP, and other such processes.

Download free over Google Play.

BSPlayer

BSPlayer-Free

Our last media player on this list is definitely not the least of them all, as the BSPlayer is a solid all around media app as well. Robust to the core, BSPayer offers software and hardware decoding in what seems to be a pretty uncluttered viewing pane – and we do realize that an uncluttered and simple viewing pane is one of our main considerations in a video player. One of the major selling points for the BSPlayer is that it lets you customize the interface to your liking with a variety of skins available. The app has support for subtitles, even built-in subtitles in video container files such as MKVs. As an added feature, the BSPlayer can even automatically find subtitles for your files online – very neat. The BSPlayer also has a “pop-out viewer” where you can keep your video on top of any app you may be running at the moment. As with everything here, it is available for free download and install over at the Google Play Store.

One last app that is probably worthy of mention outside of this list is the VLC Media Player Beta for Android. The downloadable app, even in its beta stage, is still very much usable with your device, and like its desktop version, it can pretty much play whatever file format you throw at it. The app is far from perfect, and being in the beta stage, it has a number of bugs and lags in most cases playing 720 and 1080p files. But in its defense, the team behind it keeps improving the program towards perfection until it finally decides to release it as a full pledged app.

This list is not by any means a comprehensive list, just the ones we like. Tells us what you guys like over at the comments section.

Todoist Review – Does it get things done?

For people who are addicted to writing down tasks and to-do lists, the advent of task manager apps on smartphones and tablets seems heaven-sent. But with tons of apps to choose from, and more arriving everyday, it gets more difficult to pick one and stick with it (until the next shiny thing comes along). Should you go for bells and whistles or minimalism? Do you pick one that’s multi-platform or just stick to one task manager per gadget? Do you stick with your phone’s native to do list app or go explore others?

For the purpose of narrowing down the field for you, we’re doing a hands-on with one of the most popular task manager apps in the Google Play Store, Todoist. In keeping with the nature of the app, we came up with a checklist of things that we need from a productivity manager and then check if Todoist meets this standard

Is the app intuitive enough that even non-techie people can use it?

Is it minimalist, easy on the eyes but not boring?

Can it remind you of your tasks outside the app?

Can it remind you of your tasks other than by date?

Does it support more than just two platforms and is it easy to sync it across all of them?

Can it sync with the calendar app you’re using?

Is there a huge difference between the free and premium app?

Ease of Use

Bells and whistles are nice for other kinds of apps but for a task manager, all you need to master is to how to add a task, what label to put on it (work, personal, leisure, pop culture?) and how and when you need to be reminded of the task. We figured out how to do all of that within the first minute of using it for the first time, so that earns a check on our list. It also has a quick add option so that wherever you are on your phone, you just need to pull down the notification area and you have an add task button.

You can also group your tasks together by adding to the Projects list. For example, you want to create a reading list. Just add a project, maybe “books to read”, and every time you list down a book for future reading, you can just add it to that list. You can color code the small circular button for each project so you can see at a glance where the task belongs to.

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Simple and Minimalist

If you’re the type of person who likes visual cues and colours for your task management, then Todoist might not do it for you. It uses the Google approach to apps, meaning very minimal design and lots of white space. So if you get easily bored with that sort of thing, then you’d have to look for another more dynamic app. But if you like the uncluttered, unfettered kind of interface, Todoist is one of the better looking ones out there.

Syncs Across 13 Platforms

It has one of the highest number of platforms that can be synced for free, including Android phone and tablet, iOS devices, Windows, Web, Chrome, Firefox and Gmail. So there’s no excuse anymore of forgetting any of your tasks since whether you’re in front of your computer or scrolling through your gadgets, you have Todoist to remind you of the things that need to be done.

No Calendar Syncing

Unfortunately, as of now, there is still no way to sync your tasks with any calendar app for free, unless you’re a premium user, which we’ll discuss later. For now, you can temporarily use the Next 7 Days view, which, as the name suggests, shows you your list of tasks for the next 7 days. However, the list does not include those tasks that don’t have due dates of course.

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Location-based Reminders

Can the app prompt you about your tasks in a manner other than the due date? Just this week, the makers of Todoist announced that they are rolling out a location-based reminder feature for premium users. When creating tasks, instead of setting a due date to remind you, you will receive a prompt when you’re leaving or arriving at one of your favorited locations. So you set “Call mom tonight” for when you arrive at your house or “Finish liquidation report” for when you arrive at the office. It will be rolling out in the next few days to users. However, as we said, this is a premium feature which brings us to our last point.

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Value For Money at $28.99 a Year?

While the free version of Todoist can already do so much, if you think you need more than that, you can shell out around $3 a month for a year-long premium use of the app. You can get mobile and email reminders for your tasks, as well as the ability to add notes and attach files, including spreadsheets, pictures, PDFs, etc. The label and filtering system is also much improved compared to the free app and you can also search through your tasks. The export to calendar app we were looking for earlier? You can have that too in the premium app. To convince people to switch to premium, they are offering a 30-day free trial if you sign up by July 6. Hey, it’s free, so it’s worth checking out.

Do “memory boost” apps work the way we think they do?

With a new device, most of us will not think of installing a memory or RAM booster off the bat. In fact, online surveys say that most Android users install these kinds of apps through in-app advertisements and similar pushes. And most users install these apps on the generic suggestion that using them would “speed up” their Android devices. But do they really work?

RAM – or that element of your device termed by most users as “memory” – works on a simple quantity basis, which is to say that the more you have of it, the better it is for your phone. Applications that are installed on your phone use RAM as a resource to do the processes they are programmed to do – every app needs a bit of memory to run correctly. Apps share in the total memory available, and if a lot of apps are running, there will be a “queue” in trying to use the RAM as resource.

In this explanation, lesser number of apps running will mean fewer apps sharing the total RAM as a resource, which in turn will mean less queueing and ultimately a zippier device experience for the user. Coming from this simplistic explanation, XDA and PHandroid developers – in numerous discussions – agree that primarily, memory boost apps lessen the number of applications by “switching off” or killing apps that are running in the background, those apps that share in the RAM resource.

But the problem lies in this, that when memory boost apps are not programmed smartly and correctly, they tend to kill essential apps that result in the operating system just spending more precious RAM resource in turning these apps back on. So the battle really is – for the simple Android user – in figuring out which memory boots apps are smarter, in that they turn off or kill the correct apps (the non-essential ones) and ultimately give you better device experience.

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In our humble opinion, the best way to go about this is to learn more about the Android OS – yes, quite a bit more than the usual Android user – to know which apps to look for and kill. And then, the next move will be to dive into XDA to look at the numerous memory boost scripts, APKs, and even custom ROMs that have these apps embedded that will let you kill the specific apps that you need to kill.

The downside of this “learned” approach is that it has a steep learning curve, usually requiring users to know how to root their devices, install custom recovery, and flash scripts via custom recovery. The upside is, these resources will usually let you do what you need to do to set up memory boost settings. Sadly, most users will not have the time nor the desire to tinker their devices like this. Mostly, users will end up just installing the “easy-to-use” “one button/one tap” application, because the ease-of-use is what these app developers heavily leverage on. In this latter case, it is imperative on the user to do trial and error to pick out the memory boost app that gives them the best user experience.

Jolla Launcher Alpha hands-on

Jolla is indeed venturing into the Android world, one step at a time. After giving Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 users a chance to test Sailfish OS itself, the Finnish startup has started the closed alpha run for its Android homescreen replacement. But does Jolla Launcher have what it takes to stand out from the crowd? It's a bit too early to say, but we take Jolla Launcher out for a spin to see its potential.

HUGE DISCLAIMER: Jolla Launcher for Android is currently in alpha. This means a very early stage in the development, at least for the Android version (the launcher on the Jolla phone itself is definitely stable). Although Jolla includes a list of known issues already, bugs, missing features, and slow performance is to be expected. So take this very early hands-on for what it is: a sneak preview.

We had a brush with Jolla's unique interface back when we took Sailfish OS for an unofficial spin on a Nokia N9. Naturally, the version that is slowly making its way to Android is quite different, and yet most of the basics are already there, at least as early as alpha. For those unfamiliar with it, there will be a tutorial, including exercises you must complete, to familiarize yourself with the launcher. Hopefully the final form will still included the tutorial stage, because you'll definitely need it. Why? Because Jolla Launcher does introduce certain features that you're unlikely to find in other Android launchers around, and they will definitely need getting used to.

We've met the pulley menu gesture before. It basically lets you access menus with one hand by simply swiping down on the phone's main view. This is admittedly a nice and somewhat addictive gesture, but unfortunately it can't be applied on Android apps, as it is dependent on the underlying operating system. It is, however, present only for the launcher, especially in the lockscreen and when trying to close all running apps.

That last part is something that Jolla also does a bit differently. Sailfish takes its roots from a more regular kind of Linux, where running several apps is common and you most often than not have to close them yourselves. Jolla Launcher provides features for this kind of workflow, even on Android where multitasking isn't as straightforward as that. Simply put, Jolla Launcher devotes a whole screen for showing currently running apps and previews of those apps (not yet working properly). Tapping and holding initiates a "close app" mode, putting close buttons on each of those windows. Alternatively, you can use the pulley menu to use the "Close all" action. Here's where the Android integration gets messy. That running apps page doesn't show recent apps, like what we might be used to on Android. When you close the app, it really disappears. If you want to see the list of recent apps, you'll have to use your phone's button for that (long press on the home button on the Galaxy Note 3). Another thing that Jolla Launcher does differently is letting you return to the homescreen by swiping from the left or right edge of device, from outside the screen. This can sometimes mess with the same gesture found in some apps.

The app grid, which Jolla calls "Launcher", is the messiest part at the moment. The apps are sorted alphabetically by default, but using their package names, not their display names, definitely a confusing situation. Luckily, you can rearrange them as you please. Tapping and holding on one icon enters a sort of edit mode (yes, it seems Jolla is fond of this modal system). From here on, you can rearrange them or even group them into folders. Now, Jolla does folders a bit differently. You can name them, yes, but you won't see any preview of any of the icons in there. Instead, you will simply get a number of how many they are. You can choose a style for the teardrop icon though.

One thing that wasn't available in the Sailfish OS port we tried before was Ambiance, available from a sideways swipe from the home or lock screen. This is basically Jolla's theme engine. For now, there's nothing special yet, as it only lets you change the wallpaper. You can't actually choose your own wallpaper yet, but hopefully that will be coming in the future. Another thing that isn't working yet, but is also a known issue, is the notifications. Jolla Launcher theoretically has its own way of viewing notifications, but at the moment they just don't work and you'll have to access them via the regular Android way. These leaves the notification icons on the lockscreen as simple decorations.

So is Jolla Launcher going to be the next big Android homescreen thing? Maybe not, even when it comes out in its completed form. The swipe-based interaction, especially the pulley menus, of the launcher is definitely a benefit to one-hand operation, even for something as large as the Galaxy Note 3. The Running Apps preview is also an interesting, though somewhat confusing, convention. But one feature that doesn't seem to be even in the oven is sure to turn off a lot of users. Jolla Launcher doesn't have space for widgets. It doesn't even have space for "quick launch" icons except for the four at the bottom of the Running Apps screen. Now, those limitations might actually sound very familiar to users of that other mobile platform, but for most Android users, that might a deal breaker.

Still, the launcher is still in the alpha stage and Jolla isn't mentioning any special plans for this Android port. For those who could get pass the lack of widgets, Jolla Launcher is a refreshingly new take on the Android launcher convention, and it is one that we will be keeping an eye on for a while.

CyanogenMod navigation bar getting left/right arrow keys

We suspect some CyanogenMod users may have been disappointed with how there isn't any plan to release an Android L based ROM just yet. The CyanogenMod team offered their reasons as to why the Android L development isn't a priority just yet, but at the same time that doesn't mean nothing is happening in the world of custom ROMs.

This latest addition is on the smaller side as compared to a full Android L ROM, however it is an addition that seems like it will be welcomed by many. Roman Birg has announced (by way of his Google+ page) that his "old arrow nav bar keys" will be added to CyanogenMod. These are already being added, and basically means users will have the option to add a left and right navigation arrow on the navigation bar.

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These can be turned on, or off, depending on your personal preference. The option to do so can be found in Settings under the section for Buttons. Once there you'll need to look for the "arrow keys while typing" option and make sure it is checked (or unchecked) depending on your preference. The key here -- these arrow navigation buttons will not show all the time -- even if they are activated in the settings.

Details from the setting mention how this will "display left and right cursor buttons while typing." Bottom line here, these navigation buttons will appear when you have the keyboard up and are actively typing, which ultimately means your navigation bar will only seem cluttered some of the time, as opposed to all of the time. But again, the nice part here is they can be turned on and off as you desire.

And to clarify, these have been added to CyanogenMod in the nightlies.

VIA: Android Police

SOURCE: +RomanBirg

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