In the beginning of the year (which is only a few weeks ago) it was time to choose a new mobile work phone. As I already have a smart phone now, I was searching for a very simple phone for doing just calls. Battery duration was the primary "feature" I was looking at when comparing models. Unfortunately I was not able to find something better than the Samsung Galaxy S II which is again a smart phone. It has one of the longest battery times, is slim, lightweight, very low SAR value. And one of the reasons why I again have chosen an Android smart-phone: It is simple to setup - just login to my Google Account and all the contact data is there - automagically.
First I had a few concerns with two phones running against the same Google account, but I find it very fine now. I have setup mail and calendar for both phones and so I can very easily check appointments or emails on the second phone while talking (it often happens that a customer calls me and wants to talk about an email he/she has sent a few minutes ago. Easily now with a second smartphone.
You may not believe, but there are cases, where I go out or going on vacation without my Laptop in the luggage and I might be on places without WLAN access. So happened a few weeks ago when a customer called with an issue which I solved using the great TeamViewer Android application on my phone while having the customer on loudspeakers.
While in train or bus going to work in the morning, I do read news with the Google Reader Android app or listen to podcasts, so if I do not travel for a longer time right now, I don't turn on my laptop any more.
Here is the list of applications I am using on my mobile phone - bold ones are my frequently used apps:
- Advanced Task Manager (Saves battery power by killing apps that are not in use but otherwise remain started).
- AlarmDroid (Alarm clock)
- Apo-App (Austria)
- BarClone (Get rid of customer/club cards by having the barcodes in your phone and display them instead of using the card - unfortunately a lot of barcode readers in shops are not capable of reading the barcode from the display although other smart phones can read them without problems).
- Barcode Scanner (zxing)
- barcoo (Barcode scanner)
- BatteryTime (Display battery charge level more in detail or as icon on the Android-Desk)
- BeyondPod (Podcast software - like Google Reader for Podcasts)
- Bluetooth File Transfer (Phone-to-phone data exchange)
- Bump (Handshake with other people to exchange contact data)
- CamScanner (Scan documents with your phone)
- Citrix Receiver (Remote access to company citrix server)
- ConnectBot (Remote access to other Linux/SSH servers)
- Contact Widget (Put Quickdials on your Android-Desk)
- Dolphin Browser HD (Alternative Web browser)
- Dropbox (Access to your cloud files - I use it on Android for saving ringtones and small files containing notes or scans/photos done during meetings to get them automatically on my work machine without requiring the use of bluetooth or USB).
- ES Datei/File Explorer (File Manager)
- Facebook (if not already there, but I use it less and less because it gets slower and slower with each update)
- Financisto (Financial expenses tool)
- Flash Player
- Flashlight (several available)
- Genial Writing (Handwriting tool)
- K-9 Mail (Alternative E-Mail client - I tried several, that is probably the only one where you can configure IMAP folders to use in detail and probably the one with the most options).
- Money Manager (Financial expenses tool)
- MultiLing Tastatur/Keyboard (I tried several original keyboards of different phones and always finally downloaded MultiLink keyboard - it's simply the best with the most options.
- Note Everything (Note taking tool)
- (Opera Mini - as alternative for Dolphin Browser)
- (PowerTutor - if you do not already know what consumes the most power
- and consider appropriate settings)
- QR Droid
- QuickMark
- QuickOffice (View office documents)
- Reader (Google Reader)
- RealCalc (Alternative calculator with more features than the usual default ones)
- Schweizer Taschenmesser (several small tools)
- Shazam or SoundHound (both are quite equal - record music from where you are and get the name and interpreter of the music title being played.
- Stoppuhr (Timer)
- SwiFTP (Access your phone via FTP - must be on the same WLAN-net - use that at home to bulk-download fotos).
- Tasks To Do Free (Tasklist / todo manager)
- TeamViewer (Remote Support and meeting tool)
- TuneIn Radio
- XING (Xing social networking Android app)
- YoutTube (Video viewer - mostly already installed by default on Android phones)
- Zeiterfassung (Timesheet, worktime recording)
