to app or not to app

[suicidal_monkey]

So, I have my shiny new Android phone... and there are a *lot* of apps in the market, but what to install, what not to, which are the vital apps? I'm sure I've seen posts on here suggesting things but they have eluded my (albeit brief) search this morning. I guess there must be a few core ones for stuff like security etc? What are your most useful or essential ones?

Ta

[b00n]

Some I'm using at the moment:

DSPManager - Your mileage may vary depending on the phone you have, I have a Hero and when listening to music on headphones the sound quality is not good.  DSPManager adds an equaliser and some other filters and with a bit of tweaking my Hero is now the best sounding portable music player I've ever heard.  I can't stress enough the difference this app makes.

Titanium Backup - For backing up apps and data.  Much more useful if you wipe your phone a lot (as you find yourself doing if you like to try out custom ROMs).

Vlingo Voice - Like Google's voice search, but better imho. Dial contacts, dictate and send texts, emails or tweets (if you like that kind of thing), get business listings (list of details, or locations plotted on Google Maps) and search the web, all using voice recognition.  Many of the features work together so if you say 'call taxi' and there's no 'taxi' in your contacts, it will take your location, find a local taxi company and call them.  Google's voice search does most of this too but I find the recognition is better in Vlingo.

Beautiful Widgets - gives you a huge selection of themed clock/weather widgets for your home screens, plus toggle buttons for wifi, bluetooth, GPS, silent etc.  Not free but well worth the Ã,£1 or so it costs.

And not so essential but good for killing time:

Snesoid Lite / Gameboid Lite/ Gensoid Lite - Emulators for SNES, GBA, Megadrive etc.  A little jittery on my Hero (even overclocked) but on a newer phone such as Desire etc, will play classic console games like a dream. Touchscreen controls aren't too bad for most games either.  Don't bother getting the full versions, the only thing it adds is a quick save function, whereas most games have a built in save that works just fine.

Pocket Racing / Craig's Race - Top down racing games.  Pocket Racing has better graphics and is easier, but I prefer Craig's Race as once you master the slightly tricky controls, the tracks are more varied, longer and more challenging.  Both let you race against ghosts of other players' lap times, which is neat.

[TeaLeaf]

I use pretty much all the above plus some other choice bits:

Tapatalk Pro - for forum interraction here.  WIN.
Battle.net Authenticator (for any Battle.net games)
All the gmail suite (short sentence, but a shed load of productivity and synching going on here if you use the full email/contacts/diary functions etc)
Lastpass (password manager synching with your browser too)

Been playing with the official Dropbox app, but it is pretty slim atm, Droidbox Pro is a better paid for alternative at the moment as far as I can see.

[Snokio]

Bringing an old thread alive, any other recommended apps? not so much as essentials, but useful / gadgety type apps
 
One I found was:
 
'RedLaser' - Scan a bar-code to find best price on the Market (need one for food mind you!)

[TeaLeaf]

Dolphin HD browser.
Amazon Kindle.
Dropbox.
IMDb - awesome film resource, killed much otherwise dead time with this one

[smilodon]

Another vote for the Kindle app. Real 'cloud computing'. Works best with a full Kindle reader as it keeps all your devices in sync, so if you read a few pages on your phone you'll find that your Kindle has updated to the same place when you carry on reading on that device.

Also Tapa Talk which let's you read forums, including this one in a cool mobile phone format. Makes navigating big forums like this a dream.



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