By In case you didn’t know, we’re holding a pretty big contest rewarding the author of the best app/game review of the day a brand new Android Phone. So far we’ve had HUNDREDS of reviews pour in and we wanted to take some time to not only announce the winner of today’s contest, but highlight the type of reviews we hope to see in the future.
The Winner of Day 1 is FrozenIpaq for his review of Slacker Radio! It was thorough, organized, hit on the positives/negatives/quirks, had pictures and video, and summed everything up in nice conclusion. Not only that but he recorded TWO videos specifically FOR this review:
Congrats to FrozenIpaq – send a PM to Rob on the forums to set up the collection of your prize! Don’t forget that if YOU see a review that YOU like on AndroidApplications.com – give it a thumbs up! Same goes for apps themselves!
We want to take a moment to thank EVERYONE who spent their time writing up an excellent review. Here are a few of the MANY that deserve to be highlighted – for those wondering what types of reviews we’re looking for… follow the lead of these authors!
- Album Art Grabber Review by yellowfrizbee
- Robotic Guitarist Review by mahorad
- FolderOrganizer Review by DroidGnome
- Spark XBOX Live Client Review by BiGMERF
- Pocket Empires Online Review by tomservo
- Depth Of Field Calculator Review by iOverpriced
- Vignette Review by RedSoxRobbe
- Flood-It! Review by Kelmar
- Pintail Review by pauldip
- Aldiko Book Reader Review by hybridhavoc
There was also a fair share of super-short and not very useful “reviews” that would be more accurately classified as “comments”. The Android Market already handles “comments” pretty well so we’re making a little change: from now on “reviews” must be at least 100 words and if they are not, you’ll receive an error message. If your review has a video, there won’t be any minimum number of words required as the video itself could be great enough content on its own.
Congratulations to FrozenIpaq, thank you to EVERYONE who has submitted an entry thus far… and LET THE GAMES CONTINUE! We’ll announce another winner tomorrow (whose review must have been submitted today).
a rather troublesome downside of giving preference to reviewers who have pictures/videos of the apps is that….well….they already have an android phone, and they’re going to probably sell the one they get on ebay for profit.
@Osbor: Who cares what the winner does with their phone? It is theirs and they won it… unless I’m living in an alternate universe where eBay is illegal?
People who have Android phones already can give better reviews, prefrence should given to the BEST REVIEW. How is this a downside? Maybe we shouldn’t keep score and let everyone take home a tiny trophy so that no one gets their feelings hurt.
Videos make for bad reviews, text is much easier to deal with. A video and text alternate is even better.
Well, it was a decent review, but yes some discretion is in there since I think some of the aforementioned reviews are better (Pintail has a better layout and easier to read).
It’s a tough job to pick out what review is going to be best! You probably just have to roll a dice after narrowing it down lol :P
-niko
@Brad there is a LOT of discretion that goes into selecting a winner. You’re right – any of the others could have just as easily been selected as a winner and we all would have been happy. That being said, we thought the Slacker review had an edge for a couple different reasons and the author DEFINITELY put in a ton of effort.
If I could give away phones to everyone I would, unfortunately we have to pick 1 person each day!
Yep no worries, I understand.
Well. If someone wins and has a Nexus One they want to sell I may be interested for $350 :)
Congrats, I think all the reviews mentioned here are very helpful – in fact I plan to download a couple of these apps! Great job.
Got it, have video in your reviews for a chance to win. I can do that!
I have no video camera outside of my phone. I hope my picture/text review is in depth enough
@cromag & @James D – we are in NO WAY excluding reviews without pictures/videos from inclusion. You could very possibly include a text-only review and win if you do a thorough job, submit a helpful review, and organize it nicely.
That being said, don’t forget you could very easily include videos from OTHER people on youtube who have reviewed the app if you think it will help your review. There isn’t any rule against that!
Glad you liked my review Rob! :)
The whole point of a review is to quickly find out whether or not I want to spend time downloading an app. I’m not going to waste 20 minutes watching a youtube video to find out whether or not an app is good. A review should just be the pros, cons and a quick summary.
they will probably get the phone they want and sell the old one ….o well I don’t care I.just want to win .
Thanks Phandroid!
If it makes anyone feel better, I will not sell the phone that I’ve won. I will not compete in any of the other days to come. I got lucky with this because I had just got a new camera last week and was pretty happy that I got a chance to use it already.
Wait… So, I have to post a review in the forum not on androidapplications.com?
I’d prefer reading (as a user) the short and sweet reviews rather than a dissertation.
Honestly, I’m happy to even see my review mentioned. Although I thought it was posted after midnight last night. Either way, I still plan to keep on writing the best reviews that I can, and I still have lots of applications to review.
Good work Frozenlpaq, and congrats on the win!
So when I saw that Phandroid was giving away an Android phone every day I thought sweet! Here’s my chance to go Andriod! but then I saw you had to review an Android app to win…Big sink in enthusiasm. I don’t have an Android phone, nor do I have any apps, or access to said apps to make a review. So while its cool that you’re giving away phones, those of us who love, and would like to have, an Android phone are left to just wish we could get in on the action. But don’t heed my dis-enthusiasm, I’ll admit I’m just a little bitter because I can’t be in on the action.
@lick-wire:
You post the reviews on AndroidApplications.com, but their whole system is tied back into the forums as well, to help easily manage and generate further discussion at all times.
@Abrown:
I can definitely understand your frustration. If I manage to win a phone in the coming days, hit me up and I will sell you my G1 on the cheap. :)
Congratulations FrozenIpaq. Good for you bro.
I wish that phandroid looked at reviews from previous days.
Oh well, I’ll just have to make a better one =).
Also I hope this doesn’t disqualify me, but I don’t have an android phone at the moment.. Which is why I can’t make a video review.
I had a g1 for over a year so I’ll only be reviewing apps that I used consistently.
Since this is my current phone situation lol. http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/1092/img0849.jpg
At least until I either A. Win this contest or B. Round up the money for an Incredible or Evo 4G.
I was a little surprised that my review wasn’t at least in the honorable mention section.
I spent about 1.5+ hours on it overall.
Had to do it twice because of a damn login issue..
http://androidforums.com/application-reviews/94918-engadget-convenient-technology-news-renowned-source.html
everyone check out my review of the google map now please!!! my username is cmcinto01 :) thanks and congrats to FrozenIpaq on your prize!!
You ought to remove all reviews under 100 words rather than just preventing them from the future because in the first 2 days, it seemed hundreds of people cluttered up almost every app with these Comment/reviews.
This is a very good review. The youtube makes it a lot more attractive than those other sites or just reading the description and looking at the screenshots.