The Nexus 5 is one of the best smartphones available in the market today. It looks great, has a fantastic, high resolution display, top notch hardware, latest version of Android with a promise of quick updates as soon as Google announces them and a solid overall performance; all at a relatively wallet-friendly price. It’s an extremely sensible product that you just can’t go wrong with it.
But as is the case with every gadget, it’s not perfect. There are some gripes that we have on both the hardware and software side. While there is little that we can do to change the hardware, thankfully, we can improve the software experience with the help of a few simple applications. So let us take a look at five apps that will help you fix your Nexus 5.
1. Camera AwesomeThe Nexus 5 camera has received a lot of flak since its launch. Contrary to popular belief, though, the actual camera hardware is not that bad and you can get some pretty amazing results with it. Unfortunately, what lets the camera down in most cases is the camera application that Google bundles with the phone – it just isn’t as good as you would expect.
This is where Camera Awesome comes in. Camera Awesome comes with a ton of settings and features that let you adjust and play around with a whole bunch of things before you take your shot. The range of customization options available here is far superior to what you get on the stock camera app, allowing you to have a much better control over the final image. And unlike some of the other third party camera applications out there, Camera Awesome has a good UI design as well, which makes accessing all those features even more easier.
An alternative to this app is VSCO Cam. While it actually has even fewer features than even the stock camera app, it makes up by having a ton of image editing features, including some gorgeous, professionally tuned filters for your photos that will lend a touch of class that you can’t get with other apps.
Download Camera Awesome from here.
2. Light FlowWhile the Nexus 5 does come with a multicolor LED for notifications, by default the OS makes rather poor use of it. It is awfully slow while blinking in some apps and it won’t even bother glowing to show the battery status while charging or discharging.
Light Flow allows you to customize the behavior of the LED on your phone. You can choose when and how the light blinks for various events and applications. You even get more control over the color of light that should glow for a particular event or app, so that you know exactly what your phone is indicating you about at just a glance.
3. Dice PlayerGoogle has traditionally left stock Android bereft of a proper video player. While most other OEMs have one, including support for a wide range of codecs and containers, on Nexus devices you are relegated to playing only MP4 videos in the default Gallery app.
Dice Player takes care of that problem completely. It’s a fully functional video player, with features like hardware acceleration and subtitle support. It also supports a wide range of video formats so you can practically throw anything at it and it will work. The interface is also better designed than some of the other players out there, such as MX Player, it’s more reliable and has less intrusive ads despite being a free software. It’s really a must-have if you plan to watch a lot of videos on your phone.
Download Dice Player from here.
4. ES File ExplorerThe support for a full-fledged file explorer, such as the ones you get on a desktop operating system, is one of the best features of Android. This is why it’s so baffling when you find out that Google does not actually include one in stock Android, making it only slightly more functional out of the box than iOS or Windows Phone.
Thankfully, there is absolutely no shortage of file managers on the PlayStore for you to try. One that particularly stands out is ES Explorer with its laundry list of features. Other than basic file-management tasks you can also open and compress ZIP and RAR files, manage other apps on your phone, remotely access the files on your phone, edit text files, access FTP servers, use it as a client for Dropbox, Box.net, etc. and much, much more. It is more than you’ll ever need and despite that the app is still free.
Only area where ES Explorer leaves a bit to be desired is in the UI department. If you’re someone who prefers form over function and don’t mind sacrificing some of the features for a better UI design, then you can consider downloading inKa File Manager.
Download ES File Explorer from here.
5. HelloWith the introduction of Android 4.4, Google merged the SMS functionality with the Hangouts application, which was previously just an IM and video call service. Unfortunately, this was a very bad idea. While the app is designed to merge SMS and IM from the same contacts under one name, we all know no one really uses SMS anymore for messaging their family or friends. The only people who still send SMS are the kind who want your money for services you don’t need.
This means that all your junk SMS, or basically all your SMS get dumped together in the same application as your Hangouts chats, which just makes the experience of using Hangouts worse. Thankfully, Google has not made it compulsory to use Hangouts as your SMS app and you can actually download third-party SMS apps to use instead. This also means that all your SMS messages go into a separate app leaving your Hangouts alone.
Now you could use pretty much any app for this purpose but we chose to highlight Hello, here. It is one of the best looking SMS apps out there, with simple and attractive UI. It’s also a perfectly good substitute for the old messaging app on Android and actually way better looking. And it has some great features too, such as a message preview that appears on top of your screen and quickly dismisses itself, and the ability to reply, mark as read or delete an SMS from the notifications screen, as soon as it arrives. All for a sum of $0.00.
Download Hello SMS from here.
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