Friendcaster Pro review

Friendcaster Pro review

Over a week ago now, FriendCaster for Android was updated to version 5.0 which came with some nice new features, I felt these features were adequate enough to bring you a full review of the application as it stands. For those of you who don't know what FriendCaster is, it's a Facebook replacement application that really packs a punch and is many Android users' preferred Facebook application due the official one's shortcomings. It features an easy to use interface with a few nice animations that show that this application has potential to be a beautiful application as well as a handy one. I personally did download this application a couple of months a go as I had a HTC Desire and needed a good Facebook application that wasn't too big.

Okay, let's begin with the interface, now seeing as there's plenty of options within this application, I'll cover more about my impressions of the layout and a few of the options. With the new update, when you first open up the application, you have a short set up wizard given to you so you can sort out how you want to receive notifications and which notifications and also the ability to change your theme which is a nice new addition to the application too. Once you've gotten through the set-up wizard, you're brought to the home screen where you'll notice a Ice Cream Sandwich look with the simple lines and the font. Your buttons on this screen are: News Feed, My Profile, Friends, Photos, Check-ins, Messages, Notifications, Groups, Events (and then when you slide to the right) chat and pages. Now this is a whole lot of options to choose from and allows you easy access to each section of your Facebook. You also have a Status button, a Photo button (obviously to upload a photo status) and the option to Check In. What I like is that these all may sound like a lot of options and so they are quite small icons and hard to access and squished together and all this, but due to the icon sizes they're all very easy to press and access. In addition, you still have a nice large profile picture that takes up the top quarter of your page. Along the top you have the option to quick access your profile, search and then settings. Within the settings you can change notification types; you can set down times for when the notifications shouldn't make any noise; you can also change the LED colour if your phone allows that; you can change the theme and plenty of other different options to customise your experience. This application also allows for the ability of pop-p notifications which is where when you receive a notification, it'll pop-up on your screen for a quick reply or quick access which is really nice (I personally don't use it as it's rather intrusive, but it's a nice option.) Okay, I think that is the majority of the options, if you want to find out more, there'll be a download link after the review.

I was impressed with how speedy this application was! The description does say about how quick the application loads everything but I thought this was a selling gimmick but I was proved wrong. Profiles load fairly rapidly, your News Feed loads quickly, the application itself opens and shows almost instantly which is all very impressive considering how many layers this application seems to have. The application also features Push notifications which it didn't before which is a massive bonus and in fact I think the reason I deleted it last time.

This application is presented beautifully with the nice simple look that it shows off that in my eyes looks similar to Ice Cream Sandwich which I find a much better looking OS that the previous iterations of Android. The different pages slide from left to right really smoothly and it feels nice and natural to do so with the titles at the top with the simple bar below to signify which page you're on. The different themes add something that we've not seen before on many applications and in fact OneLouder have added this feature into nearly all their applications to give a lot more customisation. Yes, I like the idea of being able to change the theme, but for me this adds a little tackiness to the application especially as the themes aren't really that nice. Again though, I have to say it's a nice feature if you're into heavily customisation. There is something about this application that doesn't look too right though and I think it's the fact that the pop up menus look ugly due to the Android 1.6 view they have about them. They're hard to explain, but you'll know what I mean when you play with the application yourself!

All-in-all this application is definitely feature packed with different themes and different options to change up your experience. The layout is really easy and the presentation is really nice as well which just adds to the already beautiful application. This is all around a really nice replacement and is definitely a nice alternative to the official Facebook application.

Usability – 8.4

Options – 8.7

Presentation – 8.7

Dependability – 8.6

OVERALL - 8.6

Friendcaster Pro
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