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FeedR – RSS client review

FeedR is an ever evolving RSS feed reader for Google’s platform with live syncing integration with Reader, previews for feeds and customizable automatic updates with optional notifications among many other features. How does FeedR fair against the sea of other Android news readers? Find out in the full review after the break!

Features:


  • Clean interface
  • History of developer dedication
  • Reader integration
  • Extremely customizable


Set Up, Layout & User Interface

FeedR is easy to browse and read news on, but somewhat tedious to set up if you don’t use Google Reader for RSS already. If you do, just select one of the Google accounts on your phone and your news instantly downloads, categorizes itself and marks which are read according to what’s on file with Google. If not, adding feeds is done one-by-one from searches built into the app or directly by links. Previews for feeds show when pressed on in search and have the ability to switch articles and navigate the feed before adding it. The process is elegant and doesn’t take as long as we expected, but organizing and managing feeds for the first time does. It doesn’t make it worth avoiding, but it’s worth mentioning you probably wont finish the set up on your bus ride.

Clean lines and text dominate the interface, and overall it comes across clean, evenly laid out and well designed. I don’t have any complaints about the interface. Marking as read is automatic, but anything can be marked as unread easily. Feeds can be organized by date or by unread, one of the most important features for organization.

White on black or black on white themes are both available and selectable from options. Of course for battery consumption reasons, phones with OLED screens should use the former.
Functionality:

  • Automatic updates are questionably reliable and battery consuming.
  • Widgets with individual feed support.
  • Shortcut icons to feeds.
  • Podcast support is limited.
  • FeedR is effective at what it’s supposed to do, read headlines of news.
  • Can mobilize pages through Google’s servers.
  • Relies heavily on the Web Browser in Android.
It’s easy to see why someone would want this much news like this. When it’s organized right it’s quick and easy to find what you want once you’ve finished setting it up and start using it when you’ve got some free time. Waiting in line can become an informative use of time without the hassle of dealing with the web browser and it’s battery drain.

Automatic updates are easy to set up, customizable, and work pretty nicely when they remember to do their job. It may just be an issue with my configuration but automatic updates sometimes just fail. I would liked to have seen some integration with the Accounts & Sync panel, something we just don’t see enough of.


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Wrap Up:

If you need news quickly, and just love RSS look no further than FeedR. With the seamless Google integration and clean UI we don’t know of any RSS better clients for Android and we’ve used a lot of them. We can only wish the developer will work on supporting more podcast links and better scheduling for them eventually, but this app is advertised there’s nothing missing here, and everything is good.

[Got any other RSS/news apps/apps you want us to review? Develop your own and you want to share it with us? Contact us and we’ll give it a proper review.]


Score:
4.5/5

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