One of the questions I get to hear often is if Android Tablet/Smart Phone runs full Microsoft Office.

I personally witness most of the salesmen told their customers they can run full Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) on the Android tablets they are selling. While it is true to some level, at the same time it is a misleading statement comes from guys who have hardly work on either Microsoft Office or Android devices properly.

As of writing this article dated November 2013, there is no official Office application from Microsoft is on Google Play Store, which means No you cannot run Microsoft Office on your Android smart phone or tablet. The good news is there are alternates to MS Office available for Android in Play Store.

There are dozens of free and paid Office Applications that let you work on Microsoft Office documents including Words, Excel and PowerPoint files. You can create new documents and edit in existing MS Office files. Some Office apps are great Microsoft Office replacements but the most important thing you need to remember that none of them will provide you 100% functionality of a PC version of MS Office.

All of the available Microsoft Office alternates have their own strengths and flaws. A user has to adjust to available functionalities and work around the limitations. Every person has different use of Office so you may need to try more then one Office app to find which is more suitable to your requirements.

Microsoft Office is available on Windows Tablets, which are entirely a different category of products.

I am compiling the list of good Microsoft Office replacements available free on Play Store so stay tuned.

In my opinion Windows Start button is one of the best things happened to computers. It made many of us feels at home at other platforms, a reason I believe every popular OS has an App to simulate Windows Start button.

I found some apps for the same purpose on Android before but Task Bar W8 is doing things way better. My cousin saw it the other day at my tablet and installed it right there and then on to his unit. I am not planning to remove it, infact it is now in my "Install First" list.

TaskBar W8, as name states is not only the Start button, it is full Windows Task Bar with a Start menu that contains list of all installed apps you have and some Settings items such as WiFi switch, Display Brightness Slider. You have control what Setting items you want to have on top.

 

The Start button stays with you in every app you use. You can control its transparency level. You can drag Start button along with screen's edge. Tap it and either Task bar or Start menu appears at the bottom. You can set position of Start menu to left or right in settings.

From customization options you can create regular or special folders in the Start menu. For example special folder named "Recent" will track the apps you recently used using the TaskBar. In free version you are limited to create only one folder at a time.

You can "Pin" your most used app to the task bar as well. In free version you can Pin one. Premium version will open up the world of folders and pins for you, among other useful things.

There is a search box in Start menu box to filter the list of apps. It shortlist the apps as you start typing. Long press on a Start menu item will pop menu for more options. You can hide an app from this list, move an app to folder.

TaskBar itself stays hidden until you tap the Start menu, in the options you can set to use Start menu without the Task bar. Like Windows, task bar will show the application you have running in background. A tap will bring that app up. A long press will close that app.

There is a Kill All button on task bar to clear the memory.

Great work from the developers to make this app one of very useful to navigate an Android Tablet or Smart Phones with really large screens aka Phablets. Try it for free yourself.

"Writer is a writing application without the fuss and distraction of traditional word processor" says James McMinn the developer of Writer for Android.

Writer is a simplest free text editor available on Android, with a twist that standouts and make Writer more functional from hundreds of other pure text/note editors available in Google Play.

App developer designed Writer to avoid distractions during the writing process so you focus on your typing as you do your creative thinking. You will not find much of the formatting options, in fact you will not find ANY visible formatting option at all because the available formatting options are done through character commands such as *, # or -.

For example # is a Headline in Writer, *will be Italic* and **is BOLD**. You can view the rest in video, or better download it for a try.

Output of Writer saves as text file and that's very much it. There is no share option either. A welcoming document comes with the Writer also serves as a Help file.

I like Writer but Will I be using it for my writing? I don't think so because as much as I like to have a quick and simple app to write down notes and articles, Writer is just too simple for my requirement even though I did like the use of character commands/tags for formatting. I am very happy with the Notes app.

Countdown Timer is very important for me. I have to use timer for various purpose at various occasions very often. I was looking a timer app for Android that I can set quickly and can set with alarm. 

Stopwatch & Time app for Android is just that, and it is free, decent, simple, fast and to-the-point. Other options make it a good app to rely on.