By Casey Chan Jan 31, 2011 2:00 PM

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androidapps

The Best Android Apps

Finding stellar Android apps isn't the easiest task, but that certainly doesn't mean they don't exist. Here's the cream of the crop.

Social

Twitter: The official Twitter app is good enough for almost everyone. Along with giving you a clean, easy way to keep track of your timeline and updating your status, Twitter for Android also has a snazzy swipe down to refresh feature. Free.

Facebook: Facebook is finally decent on Android and now actually brings some unique features, namely the front page side-scroll of friend's recent photos and a pull up notification window. Free.

Google+: It's Google's big soiree into social "sharing". The app has it all: a stream that shows what your friends are talking about (like Facebook), Huddle which is an easy to set up group chats (like GroupMe) and will even automatically upload the pictures you take on your phone to the cloud (like iCloud). Once you get a Google+ invite, one of those features will pull you in.

Tango: Tango is the best (and clearest!) way to video chat with your buddies, Android or iPhone, over 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi. Free.

Handcent SMS: Handcent puts SMS on steroids. It's fully customizable (in look and theme) and gives options for popups and to even tweak individual contact settings. If you've never thought the stock messaging app on Android sucked, we won't blame you. But after using Handcent, you will. Free.

Imo.im: With its new tabbed interface, imo.im is an IM app that's light, pretty and easy to use. It supports AIM, Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo, Facebook chat and others and is free. Free.

Entertainment

Netflix: All the joys of Netflix in your pocket, all the time-including the power to battle that always growing Watch Instantly queue. Streaming's silky smooth over Wi-Fi, less so over 3G, but the app itself is indispensable. Free.

Spotify: Released to much fanfare, Spotify is as close to a great streaming service we can get. The Android app lets you listen to all of Spotify's 13 million track library and with an offline mode, can even do it without a data connection because you can wirelessly sync your local files to your phone, create and sync playlists and more.

Vignette: With Vignette you get those wonderful artsy effects your friends love and a ton of straight shooting options that'll make you leave your Point and Shoot at home. Not kidding, there's over 68 different effects, 56 unique frames and a ton o' shooting options like fixed focus, fast shot, steady shot, self timer, etc. $4

Pandora: Pandora. You know the one. The internet radio app that has uplifted a million work hours and scored a million make-outs. It's simply the best out there, streaming music at home or on the go over Wi-Fi or 3G. Free.

Rdio: A "social" music subscription service, as in you can leech off your friend's good music taste to listen to exactly what they are. Plus, you can sync songs to listen offline. Free.

Rockplayer: Rockplayer can play nearly any video file you throw at it, meaning those DVD rips, Windows files, decidedly non-standard clips and those videos you "obtained" from the Internet will all be good to roll. Free.

SoundHound: Shazam gets all the pub but SoundHound is just as good at identifying music and better for Android because there's no limit on how many songs you tag per month. Soundhound also throws in lyrics and links to videos too. Free.

IMDb: Who's that guy? Where's he from? Should I even watch this movie? Solve all your movie questions with Android's official IMDB app. It's basically IMDB's website optimized for your phone—which in this case, is a good thing. Free.

Movies: Pretty simple: you like knowing the movies that are playing in theaters around you, right? Flixster's got local listings and showtimes, along with trailers and reviews from Rotten Tomatoes. Plus, you can manage your Netflix queue! Free.

FX Camera: It's a fairly basic lomo FX/hipstamatic style camera but it's REALLY easy to use and processes the pictures REALLY fast. There's not too many effects available (ToyCam, Polaroid, Fisheye, SymmetriCam, and Andy Warholizer), but all of them are stellar. Free.

Kindle: Just because you don't own a Kindle doesn't mean you shouldn't be buying Kindle ebooks—especially when Amazon has an Android app that's dead simple to use. The e-book wars aren't quite over, but no one will judge you for siding with Amazon. Free.

Listen: For podcast fiends, Google's Listen is easily the easiest app to use. Find your podcasts by searching Google's database and stay up to date with automatic downloads (set to your preferences).

Backgrounds: Ain't nothing like pretending your old phone is brand new than switching up the wallpaper. Backgrounds has a ridiculous, ridiculous amount of options to choose from (over 10k!). Free.

Lightbox: Lightbox is a stylish camera app that's good enough to replace the stock camera app. Though it doesn't have basic features like zoom or autofocus, it does give you the ability to add 10 trendy filters after your shot. Your artsy photos can be shared via Twitter and Facebook and is automagically beamed down to your Honeycomb tablets and Lightbox's web interface. Like Instagram and iCloud but for Android. Free

Snaptastic: An excellent photo editing app that's currently in beta, Snaptastic allows you to quickly tweak your pictures anyway you want. There's 15 presets already built in, custom presets you can set yourself and controls for brightness, contrast, temperature, tint, vignetting, etc. Make your pictures look better and share them immediately to all your favorite social networks.

Sketchbook Pro: For Honeycomb tablets, it's a canvas