9 Best eBook Reader Apps for Android Phones and Tablets

Reading is the thing to make your smarter, and that is also the reason why here I present you with 9 best eBook reader apps for your Android phones and tablets. Admit it, holding a real book in our hands - a book that we can touch, smell and feel, is a totally fine experience. However, our portable devices now make carrying around an entire library a whole lot easier! 

Feel free to flick through my highly recommended Android eBook reader apps. If you have other recommendations, just let me know by dropping a comment below.

1. Google Play Books

Google's own eBook reader app, the most catchy thing about this app is that it offers over 3 million books for free download. On the feature side, it comes with all the functions you would expect from a good Android reader app. The most great thing is that it sync across all your devices means you can start reading a book on your tablets then resume reading where you left from your phone or in the computer. It supports the most popular eBook formats.

Plus Points: Over 3 million free eBook, sync feature, available for multiple devices, cloud storage.

2. Kindle

If you already own a Kindle and purchase most of your book on Amazon's Kindle store, you will fall in love with this Android Kindle app. You can read a book on your Kindle, open the Kindle app on Android and it will automatically take you to the page where you left. It does a great job for you to change font of the books, font size, brightness and backgrounds. It will automatically sync all your book from Kindle or any other device where you installed the app. This app has more than 10 million downloads and allow your to purchase book as well.

Plus Points: WhisperSync, biggest store of books, most trusted source.

3. Aldiko

Tired of the same old-fashioned ebook readers found on the Android Market? Just try Aldioko! It has the similar book-shelf type interface as the iBooks app. You can either import your own collection of ePub and PDF files or browse thousands of titles via the app itself. You can purchase a lot of books via Aldiko but a good number of them are available for free download. It also has a night-mode feature and lets you search the entire collection. 

Plus Points: Easily import large number of books on local storage, awesome interface, nice navigation, browse through titles on their store.

4. Moon+ Reader

My favorite Android app for reading eBook. Its interface is amazing with smooth scrolling and great visual effect, and it comes with a Day & Night mode for great reading experience without hurting your eyes. Real page turning effect seems very cool. The app also got gesture based controls to do many things such as zooming, lock the page, adjust brightness level and many more. Easily download an eBook or PDF book on your device and instantly find it on Moon Reader library. Some of the supported ebook formats are ePub, PDF, TXT, HTML, FB2, CHM, ZIP, UMD, MOBI and OPDS.

Plus Points: Great interface, lets you import local files, supports wide range of formats. Paperbook-like page turning animation offers eye-candy.

5. WattPad

If sharing your books, stories and reading other people's share is your favor, you will love this app. WattPad has a collection of over 1 million free stories, novels, fan fiction, short stories, poems that people from the world share. It comes with a scroll mode that many other similar apps lack. You can find original titles as well as fan-made fiction about the characters you love, on this app. This app also lets you comment on the books, stories and poems you read and like.

Plus Points: Available for multiple platforms, share your stories and read other people’s. Comment on books, poems shared by others.

6. KoBo eBooks 

Over 1.8 million books for free download and over 2.2 million books available for purchase. So you can get so many interesting titles in KoBo catalog. They have a special system Reading Life for reading books and sharing quotes, notes etc. With KoBo, you can monitor reading habits and get interesting stats about your reading. It offers you the same sync feature like Kindle and Google Books. You can pick-up where you left off reading on any of your devices.

Plus Points: Reading Life™, Share quotes, notes. Add from dropBox, emails and local storage. Supports multiple platforms.

7. NOOK

If you love Barnes and Noble, you would love their Nook reader. It comes with a sync feature too and offers magazine subscriptions along with their collection of over 2 million books. Nook reader also has the iPhone-like Newstand feature for easily browsing through your collection.

Plus Points: Sync. Offers Newspapers, magazines and has a huge catalog of books and offers hundreds of FREE NOOK Books.

8. FBReader

Popular app has a unique way to let you choose any external OpenType or TrueType font you like and then read the book in that font. It supports FB2 (.zip), ePub and OEB file formats. It is also integrated with dictionary apps like ColorDict, Fora Dictionary etc. So, finding meaning of a word is as easy as it gets.

Plus Points: Supports external fonts, import from local storage, supports all popular formats.

9. Zinio

If magazines are your cup of tea, just use Zinio on your Android phone. It is the most popular mobile apps for digital magazines. To complement the reading experience, content from Zinio comes with interactive featires, rich media, and exclusive content in select magazines.

Plus Points: Specially designed for magazine lovers.

With your books now as portable as your smartphone or tablet, there is no more stopping you from reading favorite books any time you want and wherever you are. So consider above list and choose your favorite Android eBook reader app!

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5 Best Music Player Apps for Android

5 Best Music Player Apps for Android

Well, last time I have introduced the Top 5 Free Music Apps for Android Music Lovers, and today I will continue to share 5 best music player apps for you all, especially you are holding an Android phone and you love music. If you are tired of the default music player on your phone, why not grasp this chance to refresh it after checking my app list?

Double Twist 

Double Twist is a quite cool music player for your Android. Its syncing capabilities are a boon for Mac users owning an Android device. It can sync music, download legal and high-quality album artwork, create smart playlists and also allows subscribing to podcasts. DoubleTwist is a free app, allowing several in-app purchases and the alarm clock seems quite interesting. If you set the alarm clock for a specific time, it suggests what time you should sleep.

Winamp

When it comes to free music player, Winamp is the first name that strikes in our mind. The popular desktop music player available on both Windows and Mac is also available on android marketplace, now Google Play. Desktop syncing, importing iTunes music library, winamp library import are some of the functions that sets winamp apart. It also provides access to radio stations that you can stream from the SHOUTcast database. The Pro bundle, priced at $4.99, adds graphics equalizer, crossfade, gapless playback, FLAC support and streaming audio URL support.

PowerAmp

PowerAmp is undoubtedly my favorite music player app for Android so far, and is also something you will always would like include in your favorite list of paid apps. Its attractive customizable user interface lets you access and adjust any feature you want such as tone/volume settings, playlists, skip, rewind, forward, ratings, shuffle, etc. from the current song screen itself with one-touch access. Music junkies will love the Equalizer feature which comes with a massive range of preset settings that let you enhance the sound quality as you like them and ideal for the place you are playing your music. The lockscreen widget for PowerAmp is a great bonus feature which makes music navigation much more hassle-free as you can control your music player without having to repetitively unlock your Android device. It is indeed the essential music player app for Android.

Player Pro (PRICE: $4.99) 

If any music player that can come close to, in fact surpass, Poweramp player then it is Playerpro. Voice search option, heaps of audio effects, smart playlists, swipe gestures, playlist shortcuts and many other jaw-dropping endless list of features will only succumb you to death. An additional feature to import and export music history and rating from desktop will reduce the task needed to be performed on your android device. Shake feature will let you easily change the songs without physical intervention. Actually it is a must-have app for all Android-using music lovers.

Rocket Player

Rocket Player is another music player app I wanna share. You can create and edit palylists using this app. It has a five band graphic EQ, and can be controlled within the lock screen. It has two sizes of widgets. With a $3.99 premium plug-in you can sync your iTunes library wirelessly with the player's database. It is also cool to see that you can pick a song you're listening to and set is as a ringtone.

As always, tell me which music player apps you like the most and don't hesitate to let me know in case I have missed a great Android music player app that should have been on the list.

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Galaxy Note 8.0 vs iPad Mini

The 10.1-inch Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet too big? The 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2 too small to be your tablet but too big to be your phone? Okay, I bet the newly released Galaxy Note 8.0 will be just right for you!

Samsung has announced its new 8-inch, Android tablet at Mobile World Congress 2013, and hopes its new software features and the portable size will make Galaxy Note 8.0 standout, especially against Apple's iPad Mini. Before I start the full comparison between the Galaxy Note 8.0 and iPad Mini, let us firstly check out the basic features of Galaxy Note 8.0:

• Basic features of Galaxy Note 8.0:

1. Powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM
2. Feature a 1280 x 800-resolution WXGA screen
3. 5-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front
4. Improved S-Pen Software that is ever shipping with Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Note 2
5. Run Google's Android 4.2.1 OS
6. Smarter Remote (The tablet has an IR blaster and Samsung's new Smart Remote app)
7. Be out in the second quarter of 2013
8. No exact pricing and availability in the US

• Here is a quick look at how they compare across various parameters:

Screen:

The Galaxy Note 8.0 screen comes with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels which comes to 189 pixels-per-inch (ppi) since it an 8-inch device. In terms of screen resolution, the Note 8.0 is kicking the iPad Mini hard. The iPad Mini in contrast has a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and 163 ppi. Obviously, the Galaxy Note 8.0 is a bit sharper.

Processor: 

To make sure everything runs smoothly, Samsung's Galaxy Note 8.0 powers with its Exynos 4 Quad chip, the same one found in Samsung's fiery-hot phablet, the Galaxy Note 2. While Apple gave the iPad Mini a last-generation A5 chip, first introduced in 2011's iPad 2.

Camera: 

The Note has a 5-megapixel back camera (plus a 1.3-megapixel one on the front for video calls). The iPad Mini has very similar camera capabilities. Its back camera is also 5-megapixel, while the front camera is slightly less powerful at 1.2MP.

Battery: 

From above, you will find that Samsung's Note 8 holds a bit more battery life than the iPad Mini's. The Note 8.0 has a 4600 mAH battery which comes to around 17 watt-hour and so is slightly bigger than the iPad mini which has a 16.3-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. However, what you should bear in mind is there are many other factors determine actual battery life.

RAM: 

The Note 8.0 quadruples the iPad Mini's mere 512MB of RAM.

We all know that few tasks in iOS require massive amounts of RAM, but you may find that recent apps close quicker on the iPad Mini than on, say, the iPad 4.
 
Storage 

Samsung's Note 8 comes in two variants— 16GB and 32GB. Unlike Apple's mini-tablet, its memory is expandable up to 64GB using a microSD card. The iPad Mini comes in three variants — 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB.

Wireless 

Both tablets ship in both Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi + mobile data models. In some regions, Samsung's will be LTE-capable. Apple also offers a pricier LTE iPad Mini.

The Note 8 could make phone calls, which is obviously a big plus. It is not just a mini-tablet but also a pretty big smartphone.

Intangibles 

The S Pen is the brightest point of Galaxy Note 8. Clearly Samsung is counting on the S Pen to steal consumers away from the iPad Mini, and has upgraded it to work better on tablet devices.

So what will Apple's response be to this threat from Samsung? Probably the next generation iPad Mini – iPad Mini 2? Guys, welcome to join in my discussion. Your thoughts is greatly appreciated!

Table for Reference

Video for Reference

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Top 10 Android Travel Apps for Frequent Travelers

Umm, your vocation dates loom large on the calendar. You are itching to get away. So why not speed the process up and let your smartphone be your travel agent? Alright, my today's share is regarding on the top 10 Android travel apps for frequent travelers, all of which could guarantee you priceless vacation memories by taking a load off your shoulders. Check!

 
1. Google Maps

Indeed Google Maps is useful for both domestic and international travels. It is considered as the most reliable and efficient and useful travel apps. It you travel frequently, never miss out Google Maps.

2. Google Translate

International travelers would appreciate this Google Translator the most. It supports translation between 65 languages. The audio for translation is available in 40 languages. All the translations are displayed. Actually it is the most comprehensive translation app out there.

3. XE currency exchange

Currency exchange is an unavoidable requirement during foreign tours. With XE Currency, you could always know the exchange rates and thus manage your expenditure. It is one of the best known and most reliable currency related app now.

4. Wikitude -- Location guide

This is a very handy application that draws a plethora of useful info about your surroundings from Wikitravel (a Wiki for travelers). Wikitude requires the camera of the smartphone to be pointed toward any direction to provide information and interesting places around the locality. It has the technology of augmented reality incorporated to it. You are allowed to save certain locations as ‘myWorld’ and share the same with others through social media.

5. Wire Wi-Fi Finder

Connectivity is crucial for online applications but is also expensive during international tours. Wi-Fi Finder of Ji-Wire resolves the issue by its Wi-Fi searching capability. It could search for the nearest Wi-Fi hotspots so that you can use internet without spending fortunes on bills. 

6. Waze
Before hitting the road the next time, download Waze, the most user-generated traffic information app. It provides updates on police traps, jams, accidents, road blockades, etc. by locals in real-time. Thus, the latest information about the road can be found through Waze. It also saves cost by comparing the oil prices of the gas stations along your routes or around you. Waze has partnered with a few gas stations to provide discounts through digital coupons on the app.

7. Around Me

The purpose of travel apps would be reduced to half if they fail to provide local information. So, Around Me provides all the points of interest that are located near you. It detects your current location, and lets you select from categories like bars, cafés, hospitals, and hotels to filter though the results.

You can review the places on a map, or try the AR feature with markers overlaid on your phone' camera viewfinder. It's undoubtedly a quality app, but its mileage may vary as some locations do not have as many results as others (I tried Tokyo, and the results were not so helpful). 

8. Living Earth --- Weather report
Weather cannot be ignored during travelling. Unlike other useful travel apps for weather, Living Earth provides pictorial view of the entire Earth with weather report of the specific location. Besides, weather forecast for the entire week is also provided by this application.

9. Flight Track Pro ---Flight Search

For sure, you need to track the flight plans and schedules while on the travel. Flight Track Pro provides current updates about 5,000 airports and 1400 airlines. It can also be used offline. Useful app on your road.

10. Hotels.com -- Accommodation

You've probably already figured out what this app does. The Hotels.com app lets you search and book hotels all from your mobile phone. The location-aware function makes it possible to find the closest hotel where you are currently.

You can also access their reservation information even without an Internet connection. Even if you aren't a member of Hotels.com, the app is still extremely useful if you're in a new city looking for a place to stay.

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5 Best Video Editing Apps For iPhone and iPad

Apart from video shooting and playing, now it is just a snap for us to edit and share video on iPhone and iPad directly, just with the help of some iPhone and iPad video editing apps. Aided by high quality video camera and creative video editing apps for iPhone or iPad, making a great video could be done just in the palm of our hand! So today I will share you all with 5 popular and best video editing apps for iPhone and iPad. Just choose the one you love and make use of it to turn your homemade videos into classy masterpieces.

1. iMovie ($4.99)

iMovie is always the most popular and best video editing software for iPhone and iPad. This app can be used for making pretty movies in HD without much effort.

iMovie comes with 8 pre-loaded themes, each with its own set of titles, transitions, and music. With it, you could turn various videos you shoot on your iPhone, iPad into gorgeous home movies. You can even record video straight through the app itself for better video editing on iPhone and iPad. After editing, you can easily share the video from iMovie to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and CNN iReport.

2. Viddy (Free)

Unlike some of the video editing apps, this app is more like Instagram but for videos. Viddy allows you to edit video clips with many different filters and music. Of course, you don’t get as many options as the paid apps including cropping and splicing video. With Viddy, you could easily share video to other Viddy users and shared on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter after it is finished.

3. ReelDirector ($1.99)

Actually another favorite in the video-editing world. ReelDirector allows budding movie makers or complete beginners to add music tracks, splice videos and add titles and transitions. There aren’t any filters or effects, but it is a pretty useful app when it comes to quickly tweaking your video clips.

4. Avid Studio ($4.99) 

Avid Studio is the most powerful iPad digital movie editor of the bunch and also one of the simplest to use. Making use of Avid Studio, you could create composite video effects such as overlays and picture in pictures. Its text options are the most customizable with lots of control over font, size and color. But Avid Studio also has its limitations: It only can output up to 720p resolution, lacks a voice-over feature, and offers no themes for prefab movies.

5. Magisto (Free)

For something with a bit more potential, yet hardly more difficult to use, check out Magisto. It is an intelligent video editor that allowa you to stitch clips together, make the videos more vibrant by adding music and also add fancy transitions. The process of editing is automated for your convenience.

Have I missed a cool video editing app? Well, just let me know by dropping a comment. And if you happen to be a fan of any of the apps I've picked, tell me all about your creations here!

HTC One vs Samsung Galaxy S3: How HTC's Latest Superphone Stacks up

At long last, the much-talk-about HTC One (ever dubbed as HTC M7 before) is finally here! This new flagship smartphone from HTC wowed us at the launch events in New York thanks to its slick looks and premium features including the 1.7GHz quuad-core processor, Near Field Communication, LTE mobile broadband, stereo speakers, 4.7-inch screen with a 468 pixel-per-inch resolution and a 4 "ultrapixels" camera. 

It is well-known that the advent of HTC One aims at battling head on with some of popular smartphones in the market just like Samsung Galaxy S3, which is tagged as the best-selling smartphone of the second and third quarter of 2012. Is this new device the real killer for Galaxy S3? I know many of you are fixing the eyes on this fierce battle, so now just follow me to see how HTC's latest mobile HTC One stacks up against Samsung's flagship Galaxy S3.

Screen

HTC One has a 4.7-inch HD screen with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels and its screen packs in an unbelievable 468 pixel-per-inch resolution, while Galaxy S3 features a 4.8-inch screen with 306 pixel-per-inch, at a resolution of 720 x 1280.

HTC's display is a little bit smaller, but it packs many more pixels. In person, screen over 320 pixels/inch is invincible.

Processor 

HTC One is powered by quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.7 GHz. Samsung's smartphone packs its own 1.4 GHz quad core Exynos processor for international version, Snapdragon S4 dual core at 1.5GHz for the US version.

It is well-known that HTC One is one of the first Snapdragon 600 devices and Qualcomm says that its new CPU promises unprecedented performance per watt, potentially delivering great battery life. In such a case, the HTC one wins the prize.

RAM 

The HTC One's 2GB of RAM match the North American Galaxy S3 but double the global edition's 1GB.

Camera 

HTC One packed a 4 ultrapixels rear camera that promises clearer and more vivid pictures compared to Samsung Galaxy S3's 8 megapixels shooter.

As you probably know, the killer feature on HTC One is its 4-megapixel "Ultrapixel" camera, which could capture more light than conventional smartphone shooters. The lens also boasts a maximum aperture of f/2.0, which allows more light through to the 1/3-inch backlit-CMOS sensor, which should translate to better low-light performance.

Battery 

HTC One has a 2300 mAh embedded rechargeable Li-polymer battery compared to Galaxy S3's 2100 mAh battery. 

Storage 

Samsung sells the Galaxy S3 in three different storage options, while the One comes in two. Only the Galaxy S3 allow you to expand its storage with a microSD card.

Wireless 

If your carrier offers LTE, then both phones will ride the speedy network. LTE is becoming more commonplace, and the Nexus 4 may be the last high-end device that doesn't support it.

Operating System 

On the software front, the HTC One will come with Android v4.1.2 Jelly Bean OS right out of the box. Some Samsung Galaxy S3 owners, especially those who bought the device through a carrier are still waiting for the update in their handsets. 

Based on above review, you must find that HTC has made a phone with premium design, cutting-edge specs and some genuinely-intriguing software features. If the company throws all of its weight into marketing HTC One, surely HTC One will win the war and HTC will get back its market share from Samsung. Its  HTC's time to shine! 

Finally, what about your opinion on the fight between HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S3? Which one is your favor? Show your thoughts below! 

Table for reference

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How to Jailbreak iPhone 5 and iOS 6.1 Devices with Evasion

The iOS 6 and iOS 6.1 untethered jailbreak has now become a reality! As the majority of America was watching the SuperBowl yesterday, the evad3rs jailbreak team has finished their work on untethered jailbreak called evasion. The Evasi0n jailbreak has been released for all devices capable of running iOS 6 and iOS 6.1, including the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. It is a particularly exciting release for those who have been waiting for an iPhone 5 jailbreak.

The jailbreaking with the Evasion tool is surprisingly easy, but if you are new to jailbreak devices and want to see how it goes, here I will walk through the process from start to finish. Ready to get your jailbreak on? Go!

Supported devices:

 Evasi0n supports all 20+ variants of iOS devices, including the likes of iPhone 5, on iOS 6.0 through iOS 6.1. Apple TV 3 though is not supported.

Supported firmware versions:

iOS 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.1 are all supported.

Before the Jailbreak, what you should NOTE:

a. It is highly recommended to make a complete backup of your device using either iTunes or iCloud before proceeding with the steps below.

b. Download iOS 6.1 and update your device to it using iTunes. Although Evasion supports all versions of iOS 6, it is still recommended to update to the latest 6.1 version before jailbreak so that you can get all the new features of iOS 6.1, with the added bonus of jailbreak. 

c. If your device is set to unlock with a passcode, go ahead and disable that. Passcode unlocking has a conflict with the evasi0n jailbreak. You can disable Passcode lock from: Settings –> General –> Passcode Lock –> Off

d. Make sure both iTunes and Xcode (if installed) are not running.

How-to jailbreak iOS 6.1 (instructions):

Step 1: Download Evasion jailbreak tool tailored for your OS (Windows/Mac/ Linux) from evasi0n (You could also download the one with the links below). 

• evasi0n for Windows (requires XP or higher)
• evasi0n for Mac (requires 10.5 or higher)
• evasi0n for Linux (requires x86 /x86_64)

Step 2: Open up the Evasion app that you have downloaded, and plug your iOS device into your PC with a USB cable.

Step 3: Evasi0n will recognize your device, and then it’s safe to click the “Jailbreak” button. Sit back and relax while Evasi0n does its thing.

Step 4: The tool will do its magic, and along the way it will ask you to unlock your device and tap a new “Jailbreak” icon that has been miraculously added to your Home screen.

Step 5: Let Evasi0n install the rest of the jailbreak, and your device will reboot several times to complete the process. Once this is done, Cydia should now be sitting there next to your other app icons. Just navigate to Cydia and enjoy your new jailbreak!

Here is a video you can follow with to jailbreak your iOS 6.1 devices: