Here it is, The Android apps that stand alone at the top of the pantheon These apps have become ubiquitous on Android, and if you’re looking for good stuff, it’s assumed that you have some of this stuff already. Without further delay, here are the best Android apps currently available! Make sure to come back because we keep this updated every month!
Key Points
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1. ExpressVPN
[Price: $8.32 per month (Yearly package)]
If you want to keep your Android device safe on sketchy public Wi-Fi, you’ll need a solid VPN, and ExpressVPN is one of the most trusted and secure brands in the virtual private network industry, and that’s for good reason. It’s super fast and extremely safe, boasting an SSL-secured network with 256-bit encryption and, get this, unlimited bandwidth and speed. ExpressVPN has servers in 78 countries (including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and others) in over 100 locations around the world, so there will always be a location near you to give you the best experience possible. It’s definitely one of the best Android apps! See our ExpressVPN Review.
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2. 1Weather
Price: Free or $1.99
1Weather is arguably the best weather app out there. It features a simple, paginated design that shows you the current weather, a forecast for up to 12 weeks, a radar, and other fun stats. Along with that, you’ll get a fairly decent set of lightly customizable widgets and the standard stuff like severe weather notifications and a radar so you can see the storms approaching. Perhaps its best feature is its minimal design, which just shows you the weather (and fun facts, if you want). The free version is the completely full version, and the $1.99 in-app purchase only removes the advertising. Most will also likely enjoy the range of fun weather facts the app offers. It’s one of those must-try Android apps!
3. Email Blue Mail – Calendar
Price: Free
Blue Mail is probably the best all-around email app out there. It features a simple interface, compatibility with virtually every email provider, and just keeps things clean. There are also a set of smart settings that can help you customize your experience. It also comes with Android Wear support, the ability to lock up private emails, widgets, color coding, and a lot more. It’s powerful, simple, and best of all, it’s completely free to download and use. People don’t write about it anymore, but it gets updated frequently and has a 4.7 out of 5 star rating on Google Play. It’s one of those Android apps worth your time.
4. Google Drive Suite
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Google Drive is a cloud storage solution available on Android, and all new users get 15GB for free permanently upon signing up. You can, of course, buy more if needed. What makes Google Drive so special is the suite of Android apps that are attached to it. They include Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Photos, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Keep. Between the office apps, the Photos app (which allows unlimited photo and video backup), and Keep for note taking, you have apps for practically anything you need to do in terms of productivity. Some of the features of these apps include live collaboration, deep sharing features, and compatibility with Microsoft Office documents.
5. Google Maps and Waze Navigation & Live Traffic
Price: Free
Google Maps virtually owns the navigation app scene, and it remains one of the best Android apps ever. It gets frequent, almost weekly updates that seem to only add to its incredibly generous list of existing features. Aside from the very basics, Google Maps gives you access to places of interest, traffic data, and directions to things like rest stops or gas stations, and they even let you have offline maps now (albeit temporarily). If you add to that the Waze experience, which includes tons of its own features, you won’t need another navigation app. Ever.
6. Google Now and Google Assistant
Price: Free
Google Now and Google Assistant are powerful Android apps. They’re also both pretty much the same thing. Google Now is a voice assistant like Cortana or Siri. Assistant is much like Google Now, except it takes things to the next level. Originally, Assistant was meant for only Google Pixel phones and Google Allo. However, after Mobile World Congress 2017, it started rolling out to more devices. You can use these things to voice search, send texts, issue voice commands, and do all sorts of other things. It’s worth having. Trust us.
7. YouTube Music
Price: Free or $9.99 per month
We don’t typically recommend streaming services to people. Everyone has their preferences, and saying that one is better than another is a matter of opinion at this point. Except for Google Play Music. The app can read both your local files and the music you like online. Additionally, you can upload tens of thousands of songs to the service for free. Every Google Play Music subscriber also gets YouTube Red. That removes all ads on YouTube, gives you background playback, and has more features. The two in tandem are a hard bargain to beat for $9.99 per month ($14.99 per month for a family plan of up to six people).
8. LastPass Password Manager
Price: Free or $12 per year
LastPass is one of those must-have Android apps. It’s a password manager that lets you save your login credentials in a safe and secure way. On top of that, it can help generate nearly impossible passwords for you to use on your accounts. It’s all controlled by a master password. It has cross-platform support, so you can use it on computers, mobile devices, tablets, or whatever. There are others, but LastPass always feels like it’s one step ahead. Additionally, the premium version is cheap. You can also grab LastPass Authenticator to go along with it for added security.
9. Nova Launcher
Price: Free or $4.99
Initially, we weren’t going to put any launchers on this list. The Nova Launcher seems to extend beyond what normal launchers are. It’s been around for years; it’s been consistently updated, and thus it’s never not been a great option for a launcher replacement. It comes with a host of features, including the ability to backup and restore your home screen settings, icon theming for all of your Android apps, tons of customization elements for the home screen and app drawer, and more. You can even make it look like the Pixel Launcher if you want to. If you go premium, you can tack on gesture controls, unread count badges for apps, and icon swipe actions. There’s not much else to say. It’s just that good.
10. Pocket Casts – Podcast Player
Price: $3.99
Those who enjoy podcasts probably have the easiest decision in regards to which podcast app they should use. The answer to that question is pocket Casts. This insanely stable and good looking app allows you to download or stream various podcasts for your enjoyment. It features both audio-only and video podcast support, so you can catch up on just about anything. There is also a light and dark theme, a sign-in feature so you can sync your podcasts across devices, and a pretty decent recommendation function. It’s the last podcast app you’ll have to download and one of the best Android apps out there.
11. Solid Explorer File Manager
Price: Free trial or $1.99
File browsing is something everyone inevitably has (or wants) to do, so you might as well do it with a capable, fantastic file browser. Solid Explorer is pretty much as good as it gets in the file explorer app realm. It features Material Design, archiving support, support for the most popular cloud services, and even some more power user stuff like FTP, SFPT, WebDav, and SMB/CIFS support. It looks great, it’s incredibly stable, and it just works well. You can get a 14-day free trial, but ultimately, the app costs $1.99, which isn’t a bad price. It’s one of those Android apps everyone should have.
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12. Microsoft SwiftKey AI Keyboard
Price: Free with in-app purchases
SwiftKey Keyboard is one of the most powerful and customizable third-party keyboards available. It hit the market several years ago with a predictive engine unlike anything any other keyboard had, and the app has grown a lot over the years. It’s a free download, and you can purchase themes for it if you want to. Other features include a dedicated number row, SwiftKey Flow, which allows for gesture typing, multiple language support, cross-device syncing of your library, and much more. It’s about as good as it gets in the keyboard space. It’s true that Microsoft now owns SwiftKey, but so far they have managed not to mess it up.
13. Tasker
Price: Free
Tasker is a glorious application if you have the patience to learn how to use it. What it does is allow users to create custom commands and then use them in various places. There are many apps out there that have Tasker support, and you can even use Tasker to create very complex commands for NFC tags. It’s difficult to truly explain what this app can do because it can do so many things. Between the apps supported, the plugins you can add, and the sheer volume of stuff that you can do, there aren’t many apps out there as useful as this one.
