DataViz Documents To Go
If you want to perform any serious office tasks on your Android phone, you're going to need something better than the various free note-taking apps on offer. At $10 (£6.55), DataViz's Docs To Go is your best bet. Essentially Office Mobile for Android, DTG will let you view, edit and create Microsoft Office documents and view PDF files. You also get a full suite of formatting tools and a word counter, but it's a shame it won't open plain text files.
Reg Rating 80%
Price Free for read-only app, £6.55 for full version
More Info DataViz
BeebPlayer
BBC's iPlayer on your phone. What a grand idea, and with BeebPlayer it's a well executed one too. Finding content is very straightforward, with the iPlayer library arranged by channel, category or A-Z. It also has a handy Live feature which lets you watch current broadcasts - after presenting the regulatory warning that you must have a valid TV licence. While picture and sound quality are generally good there's no bookmark facility, it really needs a Wi-Fi connection to work reliably and it sometimes goes tits up halfway through a programme for no apparent reason, but those are minor quibbles compared to being able to watch The Thick of It or Dr Who on the loo.
Reg Rating 75%
Price Free
More Info Developer Dave Johnston
COMMENTS
My Top Ten
Not being a social network victim and travelling more by public transport than car:
1. Task Manager (Wing Tseng). More sophisticated than ATK and has a handy widget to kill all background tasks.
2. BeebPlayer (David Johnston). No argument there. Top application, and free, too.
3. EStrongs File Explorer (EStrongs). Manipulate files on device, SD card and Windows shares.
4. WiFi Analyser (farproc). Does exactly what it says on the tin, and does it well.
5. Movies (Flixster). What's on, where its on, what time its on. Reviews (Rotten tomatoes) and previews.
6. National Rail (croworc). Train timetables and live times. A bit flaky but the only App available.
7. RealCalc (Brain Overspill). Excellent scientific calculator.
8. MyTracks (Google) Because I sometimes like to know where I've been.
9. BBC News (Jim Blackler). Convenient source of news. Headlines widget.
10. Tricorder (Moonblink). Because I'm a geek.
RE: backup
Nandroid backup. The importance of this facility cannot be stressed enough. It's got me out of a couple of tight holes.
Of course, this requires an unlocked bootloader. If you don't have one of these, please buy an iPhone and stop reading El Reg.
Re: Just shows what a rush job Android is
Quote: "Android's got a long way to go to catch up with iPhone, which has almost pushed me back to the Apple camp."
Get real! The iPhone didn't even have cut'n'paste, video recording, mms, etc etc until relatively recently. If anything is "rush job" it's the fruitphone's OS.
Really useful review, thanks.
Just confirmed once again that I have absolutely no need of a smartphone, whether Android or from the Blessed Jobs! I'll stick to a simple mobile phone (that can both make and receive phone calls and texts - brilliant!) and a real computer for any serious work. Saved me a fortune - ta!
ok but....
would have been nice if for each product you had listed minimum android version. Us poor Hero users are still stuck in the dark ages of 1.5 waiting on HTC so no doubt some of those apps wont work.
