HTC G1 (Google Android) Apps Reviews

We want to share our reviews of the HTC G1 PDA/Cell Phone featuring the Google Android platform with our readers for free but feel free to share with your friends a link to our lens.

Minesweeper is a game I am sure we are all familiar with from the Windows basic minesweeper game therefore I will not go into great detail on how to actually play the game.

The basic playing of this game is to select either the flag or the mine shown (this version does not have a question mark and a simple warning: holding the flag on a square too long will change it into a mine and then boom you are dead!) in the top left corner and place either the flag on the location of mines you are certain where they are located or place the mine where you home there is not any mines to reveal the number of mines nearby or open larger spaces with numbers of mines nearby around the edge. The goal is simple enough: stay off of the mines and mark all mines with a flag.

The recreation of this game by artfulbits.com has advanced since its first release but it still basic enough for the average user. I love playing this game while I am waiting in the lobby or anytime I have just a couple of minutes between errands, etc.

Should you need to leave the game it normally will hold your place if you leave by either answering a phone call or by pressing the "home" button on the front of your G1and if you leave in the proper manner your timer will stop as well. The only con I have truly found is that there is no save for this game much the same as any other PDA/Cell phone game so really not an issue or maybe not even possible at this time.

I would like to see the ability to compare your score with other players with a leaderboard of some kind but overall I would say 4.5 stars and go download this FREE app today if you are a minesweeper fan.

I love to read and I can't afford a Kindle so I thought I will find a free eBook reader for my nice Android. I found the Shortcovers by Kobobooks.com and I dug around until I found this link for free eBooks because I want to try things before I buy them. They have over 200 FREE eBooks to select from. Free eBooks at Kobo On the top menu you will find a link for Free eBooks and you can use this on your pc at home as well.

Overall I think it has great potential however I do somewhat agree with some of the comments on the app install page on my Android complaining that the prices are too high for some of the books. That being said I did see a coupon code good through March 31 for $2.00 off any purchase. Use code: 2party for that discount. On the other hand they have millions of books to choose from and some are under $2.00 and from what I can tell they are very comparable in price to Amazon's Kindle eBooks. For example on Kobobooks.com I found eBooks by P.C. Cast on eBooks by P.C. Cast on Kobobooks.com and Kindle eBooks by P.C. Cast Kobobooks.com had "Marked" listed at $6.99 and Amazon.com had it listed at $7.19.

It is easier to sign up on your computer or laptop than it is on the Android and browse eBooks on a larger screen but I was pretty amazed at how well the app displays the search results with an image, brief description and price.

Once you are logged in you can see your books you have selected previously in a library format 4 icons along the bottom and the more button as follows: I'm Reading | Featured | Popular | Search | ...More so you have some nice features right up front. Under "More" you can see links as follows: Settings | What's New | Purchased | Free Classic Books | Featured Free Titles | Cheap Reads | Prize Winners | Harlequin | True Stories | Wealthy and Wise | Big Screen Books | Oprah's Picks | Heather's Picks | Staff Picks | For Twilight Fans | Historical Fiction
Hidden Gems | Modern Classics | Impolite Politics | Book Club Reads | In the News | The Globe and Mail Bestsellers | NYT Bestsellers - Non-Fiction | NYT Bestsellers - Fiction. So again a lot of options there for going directly where you want to go in the app such as the Book Club Reads if you are a book club enthusiast or how about those Oprah fans?

Once you are actually into the book and starting to read it you can see your options by pressing the Menu button your Android. This brings up the buttons as follows: TOC | Previous | Next | Read Related | Bookmark | Settings. You will also see the page number and chapter at the top of the screen when the menu is up.

The TOC option takes you to link for the beginning of that chapter the best I can tell so far. Read Related as it implies takes you to a list of books considered "related" reading based on the book genre and author. Bookmark lets you bookmark your page (well maybe? sort close? I'll get into that in a minute). The settings button here goes to a simple setting of horizontal or vertical and "clear local data" and no I didn't figure out right away what that meant so I didn't touch it but I assumed (and you know what that will get me) that it is like clearing a cache/settings/saved bookmarks probably.

"Turning" pages is as simple as swiping your finger from right to left if you are on horizontal and of course bottom to top if you are on vertical and vertical at the end shows previous and next arrow. I prefer the vertical because it is a more fluid motion whereas the horizontal is more like a slide meaning a light touch sends the vertical screen flowing while you really have to connect for the horizontal to slide to the next page. In horizontal mode the book I am reading showed 57 pages in chapter 2 and when it is in vertical it shows 10 pages because of the layout and how it changes pages.

Now the real bummer is as mentioned in the comments on the app it appears that when you save your page it actually saves the chapter and not the actual page in the chapter but I think that maybe has something to do with allowing the horizontal and vertical options while you are reading. When I hit the bookmark to go back to where I left off it took me to the beginning of the chapter. Even though the bookmark didn't appear to work so great I noticed that when I logged back in the book came up in the right chapter and on the page I left off. Maybe they will fix that part.

Overall a very good app so far I would give it 4.5 stars.

Android app install instruction for Shortcovers