Let us know what you think and leave a comment if you have something nice to say or have some constructive feedback. We'll add new apps on a regular basis, so this list isn't set in stone.
Click these links to jump around the article
Entertainment
Movies and TV
Books
News
Radio and Podcasts
Music
Games
Pro Sports
College Sports
Work and Organizing
Email
Browsers
Word and Spreadsheets
Cloud Storage
Money Management
Task Management
Calendars
Note Taking
Security and Utilities
Secure Your Phone
Track Your Phone
Home Screen Launchers
Widgets
Basic Utilities
Wallpapers
Ringtones
Benchmarking Apps
What's Around Town
Dining In
Restaurants and Bars
Things To Do
Places To Visit
Movies and Theater
Shopping
Travel and Maps
Maps and Turn-by-Turn
Traveling Abroad
Language Translating
Public Transit and Taxi
Outdoors Apps
Social and Chat
Chat and Texting
Social Networking
Internet Phone Calling (VOIP)
Blogging
Fitness, Health, Sports
Getting Fit
Medical Advice
Sports Players
Entertainment
If you're looking for apps to use in your leisure time, you've come to the right place. Entertainment is one of our largest categories, covering everything from movies to games to sports games. If you sit and listen, read, or watch it, you'll find it here.
Movies and TV
Netflix
Google Play
With a constantly changing library of thousands of TV shows, movies, and exclusive content that you can stream direct to your tablet, Netflix offers a whole lot of entertainment for $8 a month.
IMDb
Google Play
Satisfy the film-buff inside with this virtual encyclopedia of movie facts, actor biographies, and fascinating trivia. Millions of people rate regularly and chat about their favorite movies at IMDb.
Crackle
Google Play
It won't cost you a cent to stream movies and TV shows from Crackle. All of the content is completely free. You won't find the latest blockbusters, but there are some gems tucked away in here.
Books
Moon+ Reader
Load up your ebook collection and enjoy it in this fully customizable reader which lets you define your preferred aesthetic and even tweak gestures and keys. It supports every format under the sun.
Kindle
From the classics of yesteryear to contemporary bestsellers you'll find over a million books to browse through in here. There are also magazines, newspapers, and a built-in dictionary to try.
Nook
Barnes & Noble offers more than 2.5 million books through this app and 1 million of them are free. You can also enjoy free trials and subscribe to all the top newspapers, magazines, and comics.
Comics
DC Comics
Fans of Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, or the rest of DC's line-up won't want to miss this. There are 80 titles published monthly and well over 1,000 comics and graphic novels every year.
Marvel Comics
If Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, X-Men, The Hulk, or any of the Marvel superheroes float your boat then opt for this app. There are more than 3,500 comics on offer, including a few freebies.
Perfect Viewer
This is a free, fully-customizable comic reader app that you can use to organize and read your existing collection. It supports most DRM-free formats, including PDF via a plug-in.
News
Filter out the noise and hone in on the news that interests you most with this beautifully animated personalized magazine. Pull in social media posts and online articles from your favorite sources.
News 360
A nice clean layout offers a window onto the world of news, pulled in from a wide variety of top sources online. Choose your favorite topics (there are thousands) and it learns what you like.
USA Today
You'll find all the news headlines from politics to sport, tech to travel, and everything else right here. Push notifications for breaking headlines are optional and you can save articles offline.
Radio and Podcasts
TuneIn Radio
There's no better radio and podcast app than this. Music, sports, talk, news, and more can be found with over 100,000 worldwide radio stations to choose from and more than 2 million podcasts.
Stitcher
If you're not sure what you're looking for, then let Stitcher choose based on your interests. This app will stitch together all your favorite radio and talk shows together in a playlist of your choosing.
Internet Radio
It's not designed for tablets, but it's a good option if you just want to select from a wide variety of popular, free radio stations from across the world. You can use it to record tracks as well.
Music
Poweramp ($4)
Every feature you could want in a music player is packed in here. There's support for all sorts of formats, a 10 band graphic equalizer, crossfade support, and a lot more. It costs $4 after the trial.
SoundHound
This app can recognize any tune, even if you hum it yourself, which could prove invaluable for identifying that melody that won't go away. You can play songs in Rdio, Spotify, or YouTube.
Rdio
More than 20 million tracks to play or you can enlist this app to serve up music you'll like by selecting tracks, artists, or genres. Favorites can be synced for offline listening. Monthly price is $10.
Games
Badland
Visually stunning and powerfully addictive, this atmospheric gem deserves a space on every Android tablet. There's even a multiplayer mode in this physics-based platform puzzler for group fun.
Dumb Ways to Die
Silly, free, fun for the whole family; the challenge is to save a collection of ignorant cartoon characters from unnecessary stupid deaths. It has a seriously catchy theme song too.
Dead Trigger 2
Can you survive the inevitable undead uprising, yet again? Slaughter zombies using over 30 different weapons across 15 different environments in this visually impressive apocalyptic bloodbath.
Pro Sports
Sports Republic
Get all the latest news and scores from the sports you love with this aggregated one-stop-shop for the world of sports. You can personalize the selection and get articles, photos, and video content.
Thuuz Sports
You can find the latest scores and news about the sports you love in this accessible app that's legitimately optimized for Android tablets (a rarity). You can even watch video highlights of games.
CBS Sports
Full scorecards and real-time stats for football, baseball, basketball, soccer, golf, and a whole lot more can be found in this organized package. It can pull video, radio, news, and social media.
College Sports
College Football SC
Get up-to-the-minute scores and schedules covering all the major football conferences in the NCAA. It also has all the big news stories, and it's easy to find what you want thanks to a solid layout.
Are You Watching This?
A scoreboard, TV schedule, videos, and news covering all your favorite sports make this a must download. It covers college football, hockey, and basketball, making it a good choice for any sports fan.
iScore Baseball ($10)
You can see scores for any baseball or softball game in real-time, as long as its broadcast live online. This tracking app aggregates everything you need to better enjoy college ball games.
Work and Organizing
When you're done relaxing and having fun, it's likely because you need to get stuff done. This is the category for you. We've got good apps for managing your email, cloud storage, calendar, task lists, and many other things. If you need it for work, it's here.
Boomerang
It only works with Gmail accounts, but this app is packed with useful features. You can schedule emails, snooze them, and track responses, so you know when you're waiting for a reply.
K-9 Mail
Fully customizable and packed with every setting you could want in an email app, this is a great solution for keeping an eye on multiple email accounts inside one, combined, unified inbox.
Outlook.com
Microsoft's app is your best bet if you want to grab email from your Microsoft account. It's clean, almost elegant, and straight to the point. It supports notifications, conversation threading, and more.
Browsers
Chrome
If it's not preinstalled on your tablet then seek it out, because Chrome is the best browser around. Fast, reliable, and efficient, it offers easy tab and bookmark sharing using your Google account.
Firefox
Reliable, robust, and speedy, Firefox is a great browser. It covers bookmarks, tabs, visual history, private browsing, and everything else you need. There are also lots of security add-ons.
Dolphin
All the basics are handled well by Dolphin, but the extras in the shape of customizable gestures, voice controls, and sharing features really suck you in. It's an innovative and unique browser.
Word and Spreadsheets
Kingsoft Office
You can find a good word processor without having to spend anything. Kingsoft is packed with features and it supports all kinds of files including Word documents, spreadsheets, and PDFs.
OfficeSuite 7
If you're looking for a free way to view Microsoft Word, spreadsheet, PowerPoint, or PDF files then this is a good choice, but the editing features aren't good enough to justify paying the $5 cost.
Smart Office 2 ($10)
This app can handle all of your Microsoft Office documents. You can view, edit, print, export, and share Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files. It also handles PDFs and images in various formats.
Cloud Storage
Google Drive
You can fit a whole lot of files into your free 15GB courtesy of Google. It is easy to use, it offers a quick way to share files across your devices, and it integrates seamlessly with Android.
Dropbox
As one of the earliest, best cloud solutions around, Dropbox is available for virtually every platform, and it offers fast and efficient file sharing and storage. You can also auto-upload photos.
SpiderOak
If user privacy is important, snag your free 2GB of storage at SpiderOak. The app is basic, though it's improving gradually, but the service is excellent, making it easy to backup and share files.
Money Management
Mint
Create budgets, track your cash spending, and see your checking, savings, and credit cards all in one place. Alerts will warn you about unusual activity, or bills. Mint is the best way to manage money.
My Budget Book
Take a really close look at your income and all your outgoings so you can budget effectively and save for the things you want. This app makes it simple to set good, realistic goals and limits.
Financius
With this app, you can log all of your expenses in the relevant categories, thus solving the mystery of your vanishing money. It will reveal exactly where you're spending everything at a glance.
Task Management
Wunderlist
Here's an easy system to add items and generate a to-do list. Extra features include the ability to set reminders, subtasks, notes, and add files. A winner on tablets thanks to the single page view.
Todoist
The simple look is tempting, but the real attraction here is cross-platform support for all of your tasks and projects. The layout is made for your tablet and there are enough features for power users.
Tasks N Todos
It's not the most stylish-looking app in the world, but Tasks N Todos is accessible, lets you manage multiple lists, and you can directly pull in task list details from your Google account.
Calendars
Google Calendar
If you want to sync your calendars and pull in dates and appointments from your Google account, then this is the simplest way to do it. It handles basic functions and has a solid layout.
DigiCal Calendar
There's enough functionality here to drill down and get the style and overview you want, but it doesn't overcomplicate things. The choice of widgets and built-in weather forecasts is very handy.
Business Calendar
Sync all your Google calendars into one fully customizable overview. There are various widget options, color-coding, and support for recurring events. The $5 pro version offers many extras.
Note Taking
Evernote
This is one of the best note-taking apps around and it's great for making lists. You can create versatile notes and reminders with text, audio, annotated images, and links. It's available everywhere.
Springpad
Make notebooks on topics that interest you, from movies and wine, to travel or recipes, and you can use this app to organize them and share them. It also handles to-do's and reminders.
ColorNote
Here's a really accessible, simple, and straightforward notepad app with a list option for shopping or tasks. You can also set reminders and get a calendar view to keep your affairs in order.
Security and Utilities
Properly securing and protecting your new Android tablet is becoming more important every day. These apps will help your stuff safe, track down your tablet if you lose it, and we've included an assortment of basic utilities — or small things like flashlights that you just want your tablet to do.
Secure Your Tablet
AVG
Here's a popular, free desktop anti-virus brand in a special version for tablets. You'll find real-time scanning, anti-theft tools, safe browsing, performance and privacy advice, and lots more.
Avast
It scans all your apps and files, including SMS or email attachments, and flags malware. Extra include app-locking, backups, remote locate and control, privacy advice, and the list goes on.
Lookout
Anti-virus and malware protection, backup support, and a device locator make up the free version of this effective app. It occasionally forces portrait view, but otherwise it's good for tablet security.
Track Your Tablet
Android DM
This Google app tracks your lost or stolen device and pinpoints the precise location on Google Maps, assuming it can be tracked. You can also reset your PIN remotely and erase your data.
Avast Anti-Theft
If you don't want the anti-virus portion of Avast's security app then you can just install this tool. It can locate your tablet, remote lock or wipe it, play an alarm or take a photo, and has a stealth mode.
Prey Anti Theft
Open source and completely free, Prey is a solid option for locating and tracking your missing tablet. You can also remotely lock, trigger an alarm, display specific text, and take pictures.
Home Screen Launchers
Apex Launcher
Resize your icons, hide unwanted elements, create a scrolling dock, and choose transition effects. That's just the tip of the iceberg with Apex, which empowers you to achieve the style you're craving.
Nova Launcher
Striking a great balance between speed and customization, there really isn't very much about the aesthetic of your home screen that you can't tweak with the comprehensive Nova launcher.
Espier Launcher 7
Make your Android tablet's home screen look just like an iPad with this awesome launcher. The bright iOS 7 icon style and the animation transitions are all there, with plenty of customization options, too.
Widgets
Fancy Widgets
Customize your clock and weather widget to get the exact look you want, or download a new one from the many options available in the built-in Fancy Widgets marketplace, which is plentiful.
Buzz Widget
You'll need Buzz Launcher to get access to the full range of community-created widgets, but there are a few good options in the basic app, and a powerful editor enables you to tweak them.
Zooper Widget
A few examples give you starting points and the in-depth editing options allow you to customize every aspect of your widget. The depth of this app is fantastic, especially considering it's free.
Basic Utilities
Beautiful Timer
This app is a simple, but stunning, countdown timer. You can even set two timers at once. They'll sound an alarm at the end and they stick in the notifications shade when you close the app.
From BEN Latest News: www.benlatestnews.com
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/benlatestnews
No comments:
Post a Comment