Android recommended games and applications

[Anpanman]

Has anyone used Androidpit for buying applications from? Don't want to use Google Play as they don't accept PayPal.

[kryss]

I've been poking Ocean Tower a lot recently.

[kryss]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/promotion_celebrate_25_billion

$0.25 apps for me, I imagine the equivalent for you lot.

[koopatroopa90]

My S2 is annoying me and I'm thinking of jumping ship to the iPhone 5. Hoping you guys might have some knowledge of how to improve it with better apps, presently things I'd like improved are:
Battery life - screen brightness always on lowest, power saving always on, yet never lasts a normal day.

Email app - doesn't sync well it seems, I'll read/delete mail but when I log on on a PC they are still unread/there

Crashes - particularly on the lock screen (I've a pin) - I gave up on the join the dots thing as it kept not working.

Music - volume is even lower than on the iPhone if thats possible, never remembers what song I was on/where in a mix I was, no lock screen controls, I have to manually exit the app after use.

Random signal dropouts/internet pages not loading even when full H+ or 3G signal is apparently there. I guess this one might be EE/tmobs fault!

I only ask as I know a load of you use Android devices and love them, hence I can't believe y'all put up with the above so it must be me not doing something right!

[Yakumo]

Sounds like you have a dodgy phone to be honest. The only issue I have with my Android is battery life and that's no different that when I was an iPhone user. I can get a whole day out of it though so it's not an issue really. As for Email, try K-9 mail. Yep, I know it's the dog from Dr. Who as the icon but it really is a good PC Email client. All my PC mail now goes direct to my phone as well as the PC.

For volume you can try one of the many volume boosters however I've never needed to so I can't recommend any.

Signal drop-outs is probably due to a poor service in your area. Never had any issues on my phone. It uses the "Platinum Band" at 25mbps. It's not 4G but more of a dual band 3G which is why the speeds are so high.

As for Android crashing, mine has only ever crashed when I tried to run a Wi-Fi hotspot app. My phone wasn't having any of it and froze solid. I had to remove the battery to switch it off. Can't say I'm surprised at that though. Still, tethering via USB works just fine. I'm running Android 4.1

By the way, what make is an S2? It's not a Samsung is it? Sorry, but I've not heard of an S2 here in Japan.

[charlesr]

Can you use imap for email? Then any changes happen as you go everywhere.

Turn off GPS when you don't need it (which is surely all the time unless navigating?).
Turn off 3G when you don't need it (i.e. if it just sits there waiting for text messages all day).
Turn it off at night.

[nakamura]

Just got an S2 myself and find it fine. With reasonable use the battery lasts over a day and everything else mentioned is fine.

I miss the week long battery of my old phone though.

[koopatroopa90]

Thanks for the responses.

Yep the S2 (or SII) is a Samsung. I'll take a look at imap and K-9, maybe it will fix the phone getting things about a minute after the ipad does too (when both connected to wifi).

Signal dropouts do tend to only occur when I'm inside certain uni rooms etc, I think what annoys me there is that it takes a while for the thing to realise there is no signal so it ends up not loading pages despite looking like you have decent coverage.

GPS is always off (as is bluetooth, and wifi when not needed) and I rarely use the map app anyway, 3G is always on but I'm not prepared to turn it off as I'm always checking things on the web throughout the day and I always had it on on the iPhone. S2 is always dead by night so goes on charge, again exactly the same as with the iPhone (although that usually had at least 15% battery left even after a long day of use).

Only time I ever ran out of iPhone battery was when I travelled to London or something and used it a lot/it had to keep searching for network given the sporadic coverage on train lines! I could listen to music, play Tiny Tower pretty much the whole day and search the web/emails (with 3G always on) and use GPS with google maps with the screen brightness set to about 30% on my iPhone 3GS and 4 without worrying too much about battery...

[Yakumo]

The thing is, iPhone has a tinny screen so it will last longer than an Android handset which normally have much bigger screens. Take a look at your Androids battery usage chart in the set up area and see what is zapping all the juice. For me it was the screen followed by WiFi. So I have WiFi off now and set the screen to auto brightness. Also, make sure you haven't got crap such as Nero Media file sharing running in the background. My phone had all sorts of bloat ware on it when I bought it.

As for custom Android front ends, well many need the phone to be rooted. Mine can't be rooted but I see no reason why I'd need to unlike an iPhone were everytime I wanted to do something it would give me the finger. Anyway, for un-rooted phones you can try out Regina Launcher Pro if the S2's standard front end is poor and slow. It's very fast and so pretty with it's 3D home screens. Another point about battery life and phone speed are the homescreens. Only have 3 at most (you shouldn't need more than that anyway) also don't plaster crap loads of shortcuts all over them and try not to have things like live photo frames, twitter, facebook and **** like that running. These will really kill the battery and slow down the phone.

[speedlolita]

koopa, install a decent version of Android like Cyanogenmod 9.

[koopatroopa90]

Thanks again for the help. Just to update you all, my little story:

TBH I can't be arsed mucking around with phones - I just want them to work out of the box so dirty as I feel I've bought an iPhone 5 (about ?300 from CeX with voucher trickery!) and am loving it. I've no doubt it's unfair to compare an S2 with a new release phone but man is this thing quicker, I can type without hitting the full stop instead of space, autocorrect works and I've my old Tiny Tower back (lol).

But the main thing is the battery - was out of the house for the rugby yesterday at 10:30am and used the phone for music/browsing/messaging etc loads, played Draw Something etc and it was still on 1% when I put it on charge before bed at 2am. The S2 would have died on the way home I'm sure...

My mum now has the S2 and coming from an old Blackberry Curve she bloody loves it, so happy all round!

[Mr Ono]

Lords of Midnight has been released for all you old farts out there. ?2.99

[Mr Ono]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...S5nZ18xNjM4Il0.

Ikaruga

[kryss]

NO! That's...$8.88? Yeah, pass right now. Wake me when it's on sale.

[Brad]

Re: Android recommended games and applications

@koopa

I'm using an android. A pretty good one. I appreciate being able to drop songs in there without using iTunes but apart from that Android is a poor system compared to iPhone I reckon. I put up with it because iTunes doesn't work for my music strategy and as far as I can tell Android is my only option but I miss the general awesomeness of ios as well as the battery life.