Well, I guess to start with I need to tell you about my phones just briefly. I’ll provide links so you don’t have to put up with me writing technical stuff.
The Phones I’ve Used
As an engineer I have been given a work phone, typically a cheap Nokia feature phone. I’m totally against carrying two phones if I can help it, so at the first opportunity I snagged a Dual Sim phone. Yes, Dual Sim Android phones do exist though two years ago you had no options but to use Huawei phones. My first phone was a Huawei Deuce it was a basic phone for a basic need. I could have gone out and bought a Samsung single SIM phone, but it would not have solved my problem…. two phones in my pocket.The Deuce served me well till the end of 2012 when I bought my next gen dual sim, dual core Huawei phone.
The Huawei U8950D was my next and is my current phone. It’s known as the Huawei Ascend G600. The specs you see are for the one that’s generally available to the western world. I got my Dual Sim direct through eBay from China so when it arrived it was quite literally speaking Chinese. I’ve changed it a lot since the standard set up. I’ve gained root access (don’t worry about that if you don’t know what it is) and have changed the look and feel of it greatly. I’ve just checked, it’s still available on eBay for about $240, but unless you are a geek I wouldn’t really bother with it, it didn’t come with any connection at all to Google and I had to do some really geeky stuff to be able to get to the Google Play store. Additionally there’s a lot more phones available in Australia with dual SIM.
I’m going to divide my apps into a few different categories, what you won’t find much of is games. There’s loads and loads of games out there, and frankly, I’d rather play games on my PC or Laptop. Apart from that games chew my battery like it’s going through a bucket of lollies.
The Reviews To Come
I intend to structure my reviews fairly simply by asking some questions to help consistency with every review. My reviews will ask questions like:
- “What does the App claim it can do?”
- “Does the App REALLY do what it claims to do?”
- “What do I like most about the App?”
- “What’s not to like about it?”
- “What the the little niggles (What would make it perfect)?
- “Why did I decide to keep/remove it?” and lastly
- “Would my wife use it?”
Not all Apps are created equal, some apps are low level system type stuff that hide away and perform functions that you take for granted but wouldn’t be without. Some Apps are you’re go-to applications that you use every hour or even every time you access the phone. Therefore I have divided the apps into categories Some of my categories will be:
- Productivity (Browsers, Office Apps, email clients etc)
- General Tools (Calculators, Stopwatches, Compasses)
- System Tools (System cleaners, Phone call Reminders)
- Music Apps (Those that play, or search for music)
- Photo’s (The cameras and photo galleries)
- Widgets (Those cool clocks that adorn the screen)
- Launchers (The apps that change the way your phone looks)
- Social Media (um, need I say it? Facebook, Google+, twitter….)
The biggest question is… where to start? I think I’ll start with the apps I believe that ought to be stock on every Android phone. This leads me to point to my first must have app…. AirDroid.
Fishers Android App Reviews 