I get many people asking what the best office app for Android is. Now we have compared the top four office applications for Android to allow you to see some of the features they have. If you have an office app that you like not listed here let us know and we may add it to the list to help others when looking for an Office app.
We are going to be comparing are “Documents to Go”, “Picsel SmartOffice”, “QuickOffice Pro HD”, “Polaris Office”. Within these apps we will be comparing some of the most important features of an Office app.
Documents to Go ($14.99)
Very good at rendering fonts and other formatting with symbol fonts recognized. Pictures and other rendering of graphics are a bit blurry with some imaging features missing. Does not interpret cropped graphics at all. No transitions or animations. Does not have a slideshow mode included, slides move left to right not up and down as expected. Also there are options to insert and duplicate slides which is a redeeming feature. When displaying tables the surrounding text tends to get messed up a bit. There is no pinch zoom option which is disappointing. Supports cloud integration with Google Documents.
Picsel SmartOffice ($5.99)
Renders fonts and other formatting well but doesn’t recognize symbol font. Pictures and other rendering of graphics are a bit blurry with some imaging features missing. Does not interpret cropped graphics at all and when tried all surrounding text is messed up. No transitions or animations. Does have a slideshow mode included with a 3D view option available and slide overview on the right. When displaying tables everything fits in cells and renders as expected. Suuports cloud integration with Dropbox.
QuickOffice Pro HD ($14.99)
Average rendering of fonts and other formatting and does not recognize symbol font. Pictures and other rendering of graphics are a bit blurry with some imaging features missing. In most cases images are very pixelated and tend to render incorrectly. Does not interpret cropped graphics at all. No transitions or animations. Does have a slideshow mode included allowing insertion of new slides from camera or storage and has a slide overview on the left. When displaying tables the text doesn’t fit within the cells correctly and tends to mess up the surrounding text as well. Supports cloud integration of the following apps; Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, huddle, Sugarsync and MobileMe.
Polaris Office (comes with some ASUS devices)
Character spacing is very narrow although it does seem to render fonts and formatting about like the others. Pictures and other rendering of graphics are almost perfect with a few inconsistencies with ms office objects. Interprets cropped graphics although not very well. No transitions or animations. Does have a slideshow mode included with a slide overview option. Everything within tables displays as expected although text squishes together inside the tables. Supports cloud integration with Google Docs and Box.net.
Overall none of the office apps stand out as a complete winner although if we have to pick one it would be polaris office. Now that we have all four from testing though i’m sure they will each have their uses in different situations.
My HTC Sensation comes with Polaris and it works great for viewing documents with smooth pinch to zoom, even prints documents from my HP WiFi printer. The edit mode lacks most basic fatures like adding images, changing fonts or text color. Very limited.
SmartOffice has the best UI and looks nice and smoth, has pich to zoom which is very handy, the selecting of text on the page is outstanding, nice collection of fonts but like quickoffice docstogo it has no way to print. So I have to use 2 office apps.