Best Apps for the Nexus

Posted by xtabber
Mar 9, 2013 at 04:38 AM

One thing I strongly suggest for the Nexus 7 is a case with a magnetic cover to turn the screen on and off. This makes the device more like a book that you can carry around and simply open to begin working on. I tried several and settled on the Moko Slim-Fit case - $15 at Amazon,com. I also works as a (landscape mode) stand and provides a hand strap that helps keep the tablet from falling on my nose if I fall asleep reading in bed.

Unlike the iPad, an Android device works like a real computer with a real file system. This means that sooner or later, if you are going to use the tablet effectively, you will want a file manager. My favorite is X-plore because its dual pane explorer lets me easily copy files to and from the PCs on my home network. Others I use are File Expert (which has a built-in ftp server), FX and ES File Explorer.

One issue I have with the the Android keyboard is the lack of cursor keys, so I use a keyboard app on all my devices. On my phone, I use Swiftkey 3, but on the Nexus, I like the Hacker’s Keyboard because it gives me something much more like a full 4-row desktop keyboard.

My primary use for the Nexus is reading, and I have tried quite a few ebook readers. In my opinion, the best are Mantano Reader Premium and Moon+ Reader Pro, both of do a great job with PDF documents as well as with epub books. Mantano has excellent navigatiion, both within documents and across the file system. Moon+ handles footnote links better.

I use Word and Excel on my PC and Documents to Go on my tablets, because it handles native MS Office format files without conversion, so I can simply copy documents back and forth (see file managers, above) and work on them in either environment. For plain text files, I use DroidEdit, a capable programmer’s editor.

While this is not quite what you asked for, if you live in the USA, Weatherbug Elite is a weather app that includes an excellent weather map based on Google Maps and can also show webcam images from weather stations in their network. What I like most about it is its animated wallpaper that lets me have a continuously updated weather map as the background of my home screen.

I also really like DTG-GTD, a very powerful multilevel task organizer and list manager based on the “Getting Things Done” model. It is only in the alpha development stage, but has already attracted quite a devoted following. An outlining function is not yet implemented, but promised soon.

Finally, I would suggest getting at least one browser to supplement Chrome. I personally like Dolphin, but also sometimes use Opera Mobile or Ninesky. It is my experience that no one browser handles all sites equally well.