My top Android picks for BlackBerry Passport

BlackBerry Passport – been using it since launch back in September.  Maybe you have to, or maybe you’ve picked one up this break with the $200 off sale, or limited edition red (really thought about picking one up, but black will do for now).  As i did with the BlackBerry Z30, some of  my top picks for Android applications this year on the Passport.  Some of which are just better on a screen such as the Passport – and you’ll see why in some of the screenshots below or trying them out for yourself.

Clash of Clans
Right, not the most productive app here – but mainly feeding an addiction. To me this is “Game Wider” rather than BlackBerry’s “Work Wider” campaign (cheesy but true). 

Clash of Clans is not in Amazon Appstore for BlackBerry 10.3 or BlackBerry World. So in turn, you can get it from apps such as Snap (native app for Google Play) or Aptoide (third party Android appstore in apk format). So what makes this so different on the Passport? It’s all about the resolution. Compare this to any other Clash of Clans experience on any other device. For instance, take  a look at the side bar where all your notifications are. On any other device such as iPhone, you get about 3-4 messages on the screen without scrolling. What about the Passport? In this screenshot above we see 12 messages in the Clash notifications center – and that’s just the text.  Enough said.

The game works well with BlackBerry Hub. Expect notifications when an upgrade is complete or when your shield is almost out!

Pocket
This has to be one of my best and most frequently used applications. Most popular use case? I lose service everyday for about a half hour due to public transportation to work, and get weak signals overall in the commute at times. So Pocket comes handy here where I can download a local copy of the article with images all with the native Share function in the BlackBerry web browser.

You can also download their desktop plugin for Chrome so you can send articles to Pocket from your computer too and read them on the go. Most useful for me if i see articles I want to read later on in my commute, or just don’t have time to in that specific moment – depends how you look at it , but all it is just saving an article for later.  Really neat yet simple functionality here but definitely worth the download. You can find Pocket in Snap and Aptoide.

Pinterest
I’m pretty late to this party, but I have recently gotten into the whole Pinterest thing. I found some pretty cool things on here from recipes to some really cool concepts (kickstarters, ideas, etc). Many have probably already hopped on this application, especially since Amazon announced its availability at the BlackBerry Passport launch event, and it’s always on the front page in the Amazon Appstore. Just like Pocket, you can share to the app natively to “pin” your browser pages to Pinterest. Works really well and looks good over the Passport resolution as you can see. Like many other Android apps on the Passport, the Zoom Out option is present so you can take full advantage of the 1440×1440 resolution, almost like a tablet-like experience. In Pinterest, you’ll get three columns of content zoomed out versus the standard two which you’d see natively on most other devices (excluding tablets).

Kindle
So obviously a big benefit of the Passport screen display is reading text whether it’s an article or Excel spreadsheet for work where you get so much content without the need to frequently zoom in or out, scroll left right up or down! Also goes in line with the whole “Work Wider” campaign (finally not Game Wider). Kindle is another application here where you’ll just enjoy the experience with screen size and aspect ratio when reading novels or any books. In my personal preference, I like to read Kindle with the black background as seen above. Notice how much text can be displayed on just one page. That’s with the smallest font setting, however my personal preference is a about two sizes up. Kindle is available on Amazon Appstore which as mentioned comes natively pre-installed on the BlackBerry Passport.

These are just my picks for now, and I’m sure I will be hopping on a ton more applications in the near future.  Any favorite apps of yours? Please share – I’m always open to trying out new apps and games for sure.  Some links below for Aptoide and Snap downloads:

• Aptoide: http://m.aptoide.com/
• Snap: http://redlightoflove.com/snap/

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