List Of Gizmodo Games

Posted on 21.07.2019

Gizmondo Games
List Of Gizmodo Games Free

You just bought a new Nintendo Switch. Now it’s time to figure out what games you want to play. We’ve got you covered.

Update 09/20/13: There's yet another new iteration of the iPhone out today so why not update the list of games that we think are best for Apple's smartphone. Infinity Blade gets replaced by sequel Infinity Blade III and the same thing happens with Angry Birds Star Wars, as Angry Birds Star Wars II builds on. You and I, as adults, know to call things by their actual names. My kid is four, and does no such thing. For reference, he’s been playing some of these systems and games for around 18 months now.

Since the Switch came out, Nintendo has managed to maintain a solid ratio of good games on their system. At this point there’s a healthy selection of fantastic Switch games to choose from.

Nintendo Switch: The Kotaku Review

The Nintendo Switch is a fascinating new game console built around a novel and well-executed…

Read more Read

As with all of our Bests lists, we’ll continue updating this one as long as people keep putting out new Switch games. Each game we add will need to replace an existing entry. This list in particular got really good relatively quickly, so expect it to become even better as more and more games come out.

Here are the 12 best games you can get for the Nintendo Switch.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a monumental artistic achievement, a video game so creative and full of surprises that we’ll be talking about it for years to come. It’s also unlike any Zelda game before it. For years, Zelda games were defined by “no.” You can’t reach this place until later; you can’t solve this puzzle until you get the right item. Breath of the Wild is the best Zelda game to date, and it accomplishes that simply by saying yes.

A Good Match For: Anyone who likes games that let you explore and make your own fun; horse lovers.

Not A Good Match For: Anyone who preferred the strict structure of other recent Zelda games.

Read our review.

Study our tips for the game.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From:Amazon Walmart Best Buy Gamestop

Stardew Valley is an already-great game made indispensable by the Switch. The 2016 farming/dating/life sim lets you forget your worries and embrace a soothingly banal life in the countryside. You water your crops in the morning, and think about how you’re going to improve your farm. You head in to town and stop by the general store to get seeds and chat up the cute boy you’ve had your eye on. And if you want, you explore the mysterious mine, gather magical materials, and uncover the deeper secrets of the valley. It’s a game with a seemingly endless amount to do, and it fits perfectly onto a handheld.

A Good Match For: Fans of games like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, or Minecraft. Anyone looking for a relaxing but terrifyingly addictive game.

Not A Good Match For: Anyone looking for a straightforward game. Stardew Valley is calming and low-key, but it’s also extremely complex and doesn’t alway explain itself that well.

Read our impressions of the Switch version.

Study our tips for playing the game.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From: Available digitally on the Nintendo eShop.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate perfects the long-beloved Super Smash Bros. formula for both the button-mashing seven-year-old and the single-minded competitive gamer. It’s the old platform fighter we’ve been obsessed with since 1999, but this time, with a leviathan roster of 76 fighters. Mastering one could eat up a year, but it’s more fun to sample them all. Smash Ultimate is a museum of Nintendo celebrities, a gaming fandom WrestleMania. Everything is customizable: the rulesets, fighter balancing, stage hazards. With all that stuff, and so many ways to manipulate it, Smash Ultimate is a crowd-pleaser that doesn’t discriminate between a middle school birthday party and a stadium of screaming pros.

A Good Match For: Anyone with a competitive bone in their body, people who have at any point loved Nintendo, anyone who hosts parties or fans of any of the previous SmashDownload free red garland groovy rar download. games.

Not A Good Match For: People who hate conflict or primarily enjoy gaming alone.

Read our review.

Watch it in action.

Study our tips for playing the game.

Purchase From:Amazon Walmart Best Buy Gamestop

Hollow Knight is a tiny epic that jams an extraordinary amount of secrets, challenges, and rewards into its sprawling subterranean kingdom. It’s a little bit Castlevania and a little bit Metroid, with a roomy map and remote regions you can only access after unlocking one of many character upgrades. It’s a little bit Dark Souls, with its forsaken kingdom, tough bosses, shortcut-strewn maps, and threat of losing progress upon death. And it shares platforming DNA with games like Ori and the Blind Forest and Super Meat Boy, all wall-slides and air-dashes. It bakes up those ingredients before frosting on a layer of its own distinct vibe, and those who choose to brave the buried insect realm of Hallownest will be rewarded with one of gaming’s great spelunking expeditions. Surprising, challenging, rewarding, and unexpectedly funny, Hollow Knight is absolutely worth your time, and works particularly well on the Switch.

A Good Match For: Those who like a challenge, Metroidvania fans, anyone looking for a deep, rewarding game to really sink their teeth into.

Not A Good Match For: The easily frustrated. Hollow Knight can be a brutal, unforgiving game, and it throws players into the deep end early. It contains bosses and platforming challenges that may have you tearing your hair out.

Read our review.

Study our tips for playing the game.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From: Available digitally on the Nintendo eShop.

Ah, the blue shell. There may be no better metaphor for the bleakness of life. One minute you’re cruising along, on top of the world, and then… BAM, you’re totally hosed. Just when you thought you had it in the bag, life throws a blue shell.

Mario Kart 8 isn’t really all that philosophical, of course. It’s the same Mario Kart formula re-tuned and polished to an absurd degree, easily one of the most fun party games you can play on the Switch or any other console. Best of all, the Deluxe version on Switch includes all the DLC maps and characters from the Wii U game and also completely overhauls that version’s woebegone battle mode. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the definitive version of an already great game.

A Good Match For: People who like moving really fast, people who like seeing Luigi look really mean.

Not a Good Match For: People who don’t like Mario Kart? Do those people exist?

Read our review of the Wii U version, and of the Deluxe Switch version.

Watch a tournament that we staged at company HQ.

Purchase From:Amazon Walmart Best Buy Gamestop

Bright lights, loud music, and a towering dominatrix beating the living hell out of a bunch of monsters: Bayonetta gets the sequel she deserves. Everything the first game did, the second game does just as well, while throwing in a bunch of new weapons and abilities in on top. If you’ve ever wanted to whip a massive angel into submission using your hair, this is your game. We’d be remiss if we didn’t also mention the first Bayonetta, which is also a fantastic game and which you can get for a discount if you buy it along with the sequel.

A Good Match For: Fans of fast-moving action games like Devil May Cry and, well, the first Bayonetta.

Not A Good Match For: Anyone looking for something relaxed to play, people who prefer games with a more subtle, low-key aesthetic.

Read our review of the Wii U version, and our take on the Switch port.

Watch the Switch version in action.

Purchase From:Amazon Walmart Best Buy Gamestop

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a fantastic platforming game that had one major drawback when it was released on Wii U in 2014: true to the series’ tradition, it was very difficult. It could be hard to appreciate the abundance of verve and creativity jammed into each of the game’s levels when you were constantly dying. Tropical Freeze’s Switch port addresses that problem with a new “Funky Mode” that offers a couple of ways to make everything easier, all without losing the colorful playfulness that makes it such an unusually appealing game. There are a lot of good platforming series out there, but none quite like Donkey Kong Country. Tropical Freeze is a more than worthy entry in the series.

A Good Match For: Fans of the DKC series, people who like a challenge, those who love really good music.

Not A Good Match For: Those who hate difficult games. Even on its easiest setting, Tropical Freeze can still be challenging. Expect to die a lot.

Read our review of the Wii U version, and some thoughts on the port.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From:Amazon Walmart Best Buy Gamestop

Undertale might look like a retro-style JRPG, but it’s unusually forward-thinking. As a human stuck in a world of monsters, you decide whether you want to win encounters with wanton violence or clever context-based interactions (talking, joking, petting, etc). Undertale keeps track of everything you do; it’s paying very close attention, and will often express that attention in surprising ways. Every life you take ultimately has consequences. Despite those grim trappings, Undertale can be an incredibly warm, fuzzy, and funny game. Whether you slaughter or befriend everyone (or walk a middle path), the writing in this game is top-tier, the soundtrack is second-to-none, and the plot hides a treasure trove of secrets that players still haven’t fully uncovered.

A Good Match For: Lovers of smart video game stories, fans of games that subvert expectations, people who’ve ever felt even a single pang of loneliness.

Not A Good Match For: People who hate shoot-’em-ups and tough boss battles (Undertale’s combat system has elements of both), those who aren’t fond of reading dialogue, haters of lo-fi pixel art.

Read our review, and our thoughts on the Switch version.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From: Available digitally on the Nintendo eShop.

Splatoon 2 builds on the foundation laid by its fantastic Wii U predecessor with a more fleshed-out singleplayer mode, an addictive new co-op mode, and league play at launch. At its core, though, it’s the same brilliant mix of fine-tuned gameplay, Nickelodeon slime and J-pop dazzle that made the original great. It’s a simple idea: youpaint the floors, then swim through your paint to move faster and reload your gun, and it works beautifully. It’s easy to get sucked into the grind for the freshest fashion and the highest ranks, but none of that would work if the game weren’t fun, which it most certainly is.

A Good Match For: Anyone looking for an online shooting game that’s a little bit different from the rest. People who like colorful style, fashion, and goofy memes.

Not A Good Match For: Those looking for a more traditional online shooter to play with friends. Splatoon’s party and chat systems are pretty terrible, and it’s way too difficult to casually play with a group.

Read our review.

Study or tips for inking your spawn, motion controls, and drawing good art.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From:Amazon Walmart Best Buy Gamestop

Celeste is a difficult game, but it’s just so gentle about it. As you help your character mantle and warp-jump her way to the top of the eponymous mountain, you’ll find that no matter how complex a room looks, the underlying solution is simple: jump. That purity of design combines with fine-tuned controls and a charming story to make Celeste into a winning, joyful experience. The music is fantastic, too.

Read our review.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From: Available digitally on the Nintendo eShop.

Into The Breach is basically chess, except with mechs and Kaiju in place of rooks and knights. The latest game from the makers of FTL: Faster Than Light mixes tactical turn-based combat with randomized encounters to make every playthrough challenging in a different way. Your time-traveling commander can always see one enemy turn ahead, which makes the game as much about careful planning as it is about resourceful reacting. Everything is so well-designed and presented so clearly that before too long, you’ll be developing complex strategies in your sleep.

A Good Match For: Lovers of turn-based strategy; anyone who enjoys coming up with a plan, watching that plan fall apart, and quickly coming up with a new plan.

Not A Good Match For: Anyone who prefers a little more action in their games, those who don’t like games that make you start all over again if you lose.

Read our review.

Study our tips for playing the game.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From: Available digitally on the Nintendo eShop.

Super Mario Odyssey is all about freedom, and it is glorious. Unlike recent Mario games, the red-hatted plumber no longer must move forward in a straight line. The timer is gone , and each level is a toybox filled with platforming challenges, surprising secrets, and all kinds of goofy fun. It’s one of the best feeling, most charming, freshest games we’ve played in ages, and a cinch to recommend on the Switch.

A Good Match For: Platforming fans, Mario 64 and Sunshine fans, people who like hats.

Not A Good Match For: People who hate 3D platforming, people who hate hats.

Read our review.

Study our tips for how to jump really, really far.

Watch it in action.

Purchase From:Amazon Walmart Best Buy Gamestop

How has this list changed? Read back through our update history:

1/14/2019: We’ve added Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and taken off Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.

11/7/2018: We’ve added Into the Breach and Undertale and taken off Dragon Quest Builders and Darkest Dungeon.

6/28/2018: We’ve added Hollow Knight and taken off Steamworld Dig 2.

5/17/2018: We’ve added Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and removed Golf Story.

3/1/2018: We’ve added Celeste, Dragon Quest: Builders, Darkest Dungeon and Bayonetta 2 while removing Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, Overcooked, Skyrim, and Arms.

12/6/2017: We’ve added Super Mario Odyssey, Overcooked, and Skyrim and taken off The Binding of Isaac, Puyo Puyo Tetris, and Thumper.

10/12/2017: We’ve added Golf Story, SteamWorld Dig 2 and Stardew Valley and taken off Jackbox Party Pack 3, Minecraft, and Snipperclips.

9/14/2017: We’ve added Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and removed Cave Story +.

8/9/2017: We’ve added Splatoon 2 and bumped off Disgaea 5.

6/28/2017: Time for our first update, and it’s a big one. We’ve added Minecraft, Arms, Cave Story+, Disgaea 5, Jackbox Party Pack 3 and Thumper, and removed I Am Setsuna and Mr. Shifty. The list will remain capped at 12 games from here on out.

5/3/2017: And lo, the Switch Bests list was created! No updates yet. Expect more in the near future as we add more games, eventually capping the list at 12.

Want more of the best games on each system? Check out our complete directory:

The Best PC Games • The Best PS4 Games • The Best Xbox One Games • The Best Wii U Games • The Best PC Virtual Reality Games • The Best 3DS Games • The Best PS Vita Games • The Best Xbox 360 Games • The Best PS3 Games • The Best Wii Games • The Best iPhone Games • The Best iPad Games • The Best Android Games • The Best PSP Games • The Best Facebook Games • The Best DS Games • The Best Mac Games • The Best Browser Games • The Best PC Mods

Note: If you buy any of these games through the retail links in this post, our parent company may get a small share of the sale through the retailers’ affiliates program.

With over two million apps in the Play Store, Android is home to one of the biggest app stores in the world. Soon they’ll even be on your favorite Chromebooks as well. In this year’s annual Lifehacker Pack, we’re picking the must-have downloads for every category of app you could ever need.

The Lifehacker Pack is a yearly snapshot of our favorite, essential applications for each of our favorite platforms. For our always-updating directory of all the best apps, be sure to bookmark our Android App Directory.

Productivity

Any.do/Google Keep/Wunderlist

To-do list managers come in more flavors than Skittles, but one of these three should work for just about everyone. In addition to being a Lifehacker crowd favorite, Any.DO comes with a bunch of sweet extra features. Google Keep keeps things simpler and as straightforward as possible, while Wunderlist is packed with great features. Whatever your preferences, one of these to-do apps should work for you.

Boomerang/Inbox by Gmail

Boomerang has been one of our favorite apps for powering up your email for a while. You can schedule messages, snooze them for later, and even set up recurring messages. Google also offers a similar app that works directly with your Gmail account called Inbox. This app allows you to bundle related emails together, snooze emails, or pin them as to-dos. It also surfaces important information in your emails like links to package tracking info, reservations, and more. Inbox also plugs into your Google account to show you your Google Now reminders directly in the app. Inbox is an entirely different way to approach email.

Today Calendar

Making a decent-looking calendar application on a phone is hard. Calendars need to display a lot of information in a small space. In this, Today Calendar excels. The unique split view shows you an overview of your month on the top half of your phone with an agenda for the selected day on the bottom half. It also has quick actions that allow you to call numbers, pull up addresses, or email an attendee with one tap.

Dropbox/Google Drive

Dropbox set the standard when it comes to syncing files between multiple computers. Nothing beats its speed, simplicity, and ubiquity. However, if you like to stick to Google’s ecosystem, Google Drive offers a bit more flexibility for storing your files when it comes to integrated apps. With Google’s suite of document editing apps to accompany Drive, you may even use both in tandem (as many of us do).

Evernote/OneNote

Evernote, when used properly, can help even the most disorganized person sort, store, and find all their stuff online. You can even combine it with Pocket to reduce clutter while still saving everything. Unfortunately, Evernote recently upped its paid subscription price and limited users to two devices. If you can’t live with that, Microsoft’s OneNote is a powerful alternative that can store your notes and help you organize your digital notebooks.

Habitica

Many of us are much more comfortable grinding away at tedious tasks if we get to level up. Habitica (formerly known as HabitRPG) takes this concept and applies to real life instead of World of Warcraft. Create habits or repetitive tasks you want to perform and it will give you experience points for completing them. If you fail to do so, you’ll lose health points. The app is one of the best ways to productively gamify your life.

Internet Communications

Chrome

Chrome on Android has had a difficult history, but it’s grown up a lot over the years. Now, it includes a ton of useful features. You can view tabs open on other devices, hide your activity with incognito mode, and use experimental features like a stripped-down “reader” mode. You can also use Chrome’s data saver mode to keep your downloads light.

Twitter/Falcon Pro/Talon

Finding a decent alternative Twitter client is pretty hard, due to Twitter’s bizarre stance on locking out the developers that make them. With that manufactured advantage, though, Twitter’s app has come a long way. It supports multiple accounts, lists, and plenty more. If you want to try an alternative (and don’t mind jumping through Twitter’s annoying token limit hoops), Falcon Pro and Talon both offer a ton of features for power users while letting you customize your experience. Since Twitter’s token limit can get in the way, we’ve included both just in case one isn’t available to new users at the moment.

Hangouts/Facebook Messenger

Hangouts has been getting incrementally better over the years. It supports group messaging, has Google Voice integration, video chat, SMS, stickers, and plenty more. Facebook has also built Messenger into an extremely powerful tool with nearly all of those features, plus the ability to send voice recordings, search for images and GIFs, integrate with third-party apps and even send money. Best of all, everyone you know is probably already on Facebook and using Messenger to begin with.

Google Voice

Another year has gone by with hardly any update for Google Voice. That may cause some to worry a bit. Still, until Google officially kills the project or merges it with something else, it has more features for a single free service than any competitor. Recording your calls, texting over WiFi or your tablet, calling from the desktop, phone call forwarding are all part of Google Voice’s robust arsenal.

Pushbullet

Pushbullet started as an app to send links between your devices, and now it’s grown into a do-everything bridge between your devices. The company stirred up a bit of controversy last year by introducing a paid pro plan for things like universal copy and paste, or to send more than 100 SMS messages a month, but it’s still pretty killer. You can use it to mirror your phone’s notifications, connect with IFTTT channels, and more.

Location-Aware

Google Now

Google Now remains one of the most useful apps you can have on your phone. It’s almost impossible to list all the amazing things Google Now can do (although we’ve tried), but the short list includes voice commands, reminders, travel time, package tracking, and tons more. Just be sure to train Google Now well.

Google Maps

Calling Google Maps an essential app is a bit of an undersell, as it’s one of the most-used Android apps of all time. Google Maps for Android includes a ton of excellent features like integrated search history, local traffic incidents, and more. This year, Google’s also made it way easier to add stops to your route and find gas prices. And all of this is on top of Maps already being our favorite map application.

1Weather/Dark Sky

Google Now includes basic weather forecasting, but if you need a little more oomph in your predictions, 1Weather is the app to beat. The app comes with live-updating widgets, animated radar and cloud cover maps. Dark Sky, the awesome up-to-the-minute weather app also came to Android this year. It costs $3/year to get the absolute latest data, but the experience is well worth it if you need timely weather updates.

Android Device Manager/Lookout

When you get a new Android phone, we highly recommend installing Android Device Manager (among other things). This app can locate your phone if lost, remotely lock or even wipe it if it’s stolen. As basic security goes, it’s the bare minimum anyone should have. If you’re looking for something more, Lookout does much of what ADM does, plus it helps protect you from phishing scams, backs up your data, and more.

Music and Photos

Play Music/Spotify

When Google launched Play Music, we were pretty blown away with how impressive it is as a music service. If you want to bring your own music library, Google lets you upload songs, so if a particular track or artist isn’t included in its subscription, you’re not out of luck. Play Music’s subscription also includes YouTube Red, which lets you listen to YouTube videos in the background, download them for offline playback, and skip all ads. That’s a pretty great package, even if Google does suck at naming stuff. Spotify, on the other hand, excels by having a free, ad-supported option for the desktop, as well as a ton of excellent features. Its desktop app even allows developers to augment it, so there’s plenty to explore.

Pandora

If you’re not keen on managing your own huge library and would rather just let an algorithm decide your playlist for you, Pandora stands alone. The service is known for its ability to match users’ tastes reliably with minimal interaction. Just set it and forget it.

Shazam

When it comes to tagging music while you’re out, it still doesn’t get much better than Shazam. The app can recognize virtually any song, even over background noise. You can then find the track on services like Play Music, Spotify, Rdio, and even Amazon Prime. It will also show you music videos, lyrics, and discography information for tracks where available.

Instagram

Instagram may have started as a place to share pictures of your lunch (I assume), but it’s grown up to include a wide variety of useful features like direct photo and video messaging, and more useful photo editing features. You may be able to get many of the same features through a few other apps (see below), but Instagram offers the entire package in one service.

Snapseed/Google Photos

Google’s photo tools have always been pretty stellar. For starters, Snapseed is a pretty powerful photo editor with a ton of handy tools for tweaking your images. The recently-revamped Google Photos can then manage your massive library, organize into albums, and even perform “visual searches” using some pretty impressive image recognition software.

Camera Zoom FX/Google Camera

Camera ZOOM FX remains one of our favorite Android cameras. It supports time lapse shots, customizing your hardware buttons to perform camera functions, and a horizontal level indicator, on top of the standard suite of photo editing and sharing features, it’s hard to beat. If you don’t need all the bells and whistles, however, Google Camera offers many unique, user-friendly features like lens blur, photospheres, and HDR.

Focus

Focus is a relative newcomer and already it’s become our favorite photo management alternative on Android. You can tag photos to organize them into collections, lock your phone to a single photo when sharing your phone to prevent snooping, and hide photos in a photo “vault.” You can even lock the vault or the entire app itself with a PIN or your fingerprint. If you’re looking for a better way to manage your huge photo collection, Focus is our new go-to.

Movies and Video

Netflix/Hulu

Netflix is inarguably the king of content streaming online. While you may want to make sure you’re on WiFi before you stream the next Marvel show, the mobile app is a must have for watching movies and TV shows while away from the living room. Where Netflix doesn’t have what you want, Hulu very well may. The overlap between the two services’ libraries are so minimal that it’s sometimes worth it to have both.

IMDb

Arguably, there was no more noble purpose to the smartphone revolution than to finally, and with authority answer the question “Where do I know that guy from?” IMDb is useful for more than just trivia, though. You can search for showtimes, create lists of movies you want to see, and get notified of new releases. If you ever watch movies, IMDb belongs on your phone.

BS Player/VLC

Whether you have a limited amount of data or just watch too many movies, sometimes it’s helpful to have some files on your phone directly. BS Player is our favorite pick for Android video player. It supports a wide array of file formats, has a pop-out player so you can watch a video while you do other things, and it can even stream content over local networks. VLC has also started climbing the feature ladder and it’s nearly comparable with BS Player, so if you’re loyal to it on the desktop, it might be ready for you on Android.

Reading and News

Pocket

Bookmarks are okay for saving the occasional web page that you need to hang on to, but for saving articles to read later, you’ll start to get overwhelmed real fast. Pocket helps by saving articles in their entirety so you can read come back to them when you have time, even when you’re offline. If you want to get more advanced, you can use Pocket to save everything you need online.

Kindle/Play Books

Between Amazon’s Kindle app and Google’s Play Books, it’s never been easier to find a way to read books on your phone or tablet. Amazon has the advantage in having one of the most robust libraries, as well as a powerful app. Play Books is no slouch either (and in fact it’s our favorite ereader for Android). Fortunately you can buy books from whatever store you choose and read them in one place, so you can pick your reader based on the features you need, rather than the book library.

Feedly

Feedly has become the go-to RSS reader of choice for users who want to follow a ton of websites at once. Not only is it one of the best news reader apps around, but it has its own ecosystem of clients, so if you don’t like the default interface, you can use Feedly as a backend to sync all your feeds.

Health, Food, and Fitness

RunKeeper

Runkeeper has been one of our favorite fitness apps for years. It tracks your runs, offers guided training that provides schedules for workouts and plans specifically designed for the type of health goal you want to achieve, and can even make use of your smart watch, if you happen to have one. If you’re a runner, or just like getting out of your house it’s worth keeping around.

Fitocracy

Runkeeper is excellent for runners, but if you’re looking for a more robust health and fitness app, Fitocracy gamifies your entire workout. It also encourages community involvement in order to keep you accountable. It also has a robust web app that keeps you engaged when you’re at your desk. If you’re ready to step beyond basic fitness tracking, Fitocracy is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

MyFitnessPal/Lose It!

If you’re tracking your workouts, it makes sense you’d also track what you eat. MyFitnessPal and Lose It! both allow you to scan the foods you eat, track your calories, nutrients, and set goals for your target weight. Both apps are pretty fundamentally similar, so you can take your pick for your own preference.

Yelp

Yelp is one of those apps that’s so good at what it does, its name becomes synonymous with the task itself. When it comes to restaurant discovery and reviews, Yelp is the de facto standard. With a huge library of user reviews, it’s never been easier not only to find your next meal, but know ahead of time whether or not a restaurant is worth your time and money.

Customization

Nova/Apex

Google’s default launcher is pretty good, but there’s plenty of room for improvement. Nova and Apex are both excellent, customizable launchers with copious extra features on top of existing functionality. With both, you can hide unwanted apps, choose custom animations, and apply custom icon/skin packs. Which one is better is largely a matter of personal preference, so pick one or try both and see which one you like.

DashClock Widget

Widgets have always been one of Android’s strongest unique features and nowhere is that more apparent than Dashclock. This widget can display information at a glance like number of unread emails, missed calls, or calendar appointment. The real awesome thing, however, is that you can get extensions to add even more info like battery life, contact shortcuts, or RSS feeds. With the right extensions, Dashclock may be the only widget you ever need.

SwiftKey/Google Keyboard

SwiftKey was already our favorite Android keyboard before it became free to use. With intelligent word prediction, Swype-like gesture input, and cloud sync of custom dictionaries, it’s difficult to find a better typing experience on your phone. Google’s own keyboard has also grown, adding a one-handed typing mode, gestures for navigating text, and more. If it doesn’t come standard with your phone, it’s worth a download.

Utilites

Tasker/IF

Tasker is a miracle app on Android. You can use it to send voice commands to your thermostat, turn on your lights when you get home, or do just about anything with your voice. If it’s too complicated for you (and we can’t blame you), IF, the ambiguously-named app from IFTTT makes automation between your Android device and various web-connected services dead simple. Both serve different purposes on Android, but they’re even better together.

Solid Explorer

ES File Explorer was our previous pick for best file manager on Android, but after it started adding some shady adware, we bumped it down. Fortunately, Solid Explorer is an excellent alternative. It can manage your files locally, access your cloud storage, cast media to your Chromecast and a ton more. It costs $1.99 after a 14-day free trial, but that’s a small price to pay to avoid adware.

Gizmondo Games

AirDroid

Fiddling with your tiny phone when you’re at a full computer is a pain, particularly if you need to access files on your phone. AirDroid does more than you could possibly ever need, all without ever touching your handset. The app remotely access everything on your phone via the web browser, even allowing you to read and reply to text messages from your computer.

Unified Remote

In keeping with the theme of fixing minor annoyances with insanely robust apps, Unified Remote is the yin to AirDroid’s yang. You can use this app to remotely control your computer over Wi-Fi with your phone or tablet. While it does include a virtual trackpad and keyboard, Unified Remote really shines with custom remotes for common apps like Netflix, VLC, Plex, and more. You can even create custom widgets to control just about everything on your HTPC from a single home screen.

Root Apps

Greenify

Strictly speaking, Greenify isn’t a root app anymore, but it’s still best when you are rooted. It monitors your apps and disables any you aren’t using to help save battery (so Facebook can’t drain your battery in the background when you haven’t touched it for hours). If you’re not rooted, you can still select a list of apps that you want to hibernate and add a “hibernate all” switch to your home screen, but it’s not nearly as robust without root.

Titanium Backup

Contrary to what Android’s welcome screens would have you believe, Google doesn’t have a proper backup and restore system out of the box. Titanium Backup is the classic mainstay that fixes this problem. Despite being an older app, it still checks out. Rooted users can employ Titanium Backup to create a fully automated app backup system.

List Of Gizmodo Games Free

Xposed

Few can argue that Xposed is one of the most powerful and useful apps root users can have. Technically, Xposed is a framework that allows users to create their own customized version of Android solely using modules. While it’s not a total replacement for custom ROMs, it’s good enough for many users.