PhotoGrid Photo Collage Maker app review

Today’s review: Photogrid Photo Collage Maker version 6.14

Google Play: PhotoGrid

Features (taken from Google Play):

A must-have photo editor app for photography fanatics! It’s packed with features such as collage maker, image retouch, stickers, posters, slideshow, animated filters and so much more! You can even frame your photo in Instagram’s famous 1:1 aspect ratio! Create and beautify interesting photos within seconds! Just go get it !

★Photo Editing:Beautify Your Photos

-Collage Maker: 300+ different collage templates for you to combine photos in different ways, you can even customize templates to suit your needs! Design your own photo creation! Anything is possible!

-Beautify: Access handy tools at your fingertip! Crop, resize, blur and beautify your photos, you can even frame your images in Instagram’s famous full 1:1 aspect ratio! Add stickers, texts, backgrounds, graffiti, boarders and pixelization, or adjust your photo’s brightness, contrast, saturation and layout!

-Crop & Resize: Supports horizontal and vertical cropping & resizing. Crop & Resize your images in different aspect ratio.

-Filter: 50+ exquisite filters, including beautify, retro, landscape, halo, black & white and all sorts of festive filters. Bad or good weather, you still can make photos better!

-Stickers: Personalize your photo collage with 500+ stickers and cute emoji.

-Adjust: Adjust your image’s brightness, contrast, saturation and hue value.

-Text: Supports various types of font styles and colors. Write some word, let the photo tell your story.

-Backgrounds: 80+ varieties of backgrounds!

-Blur: Edit the level of background blur with a single tap!

-Retouch: The latest smart facial recognition tech helps soften wrinkles, even out skin tones and remove blemishes instantly with a single tap. Make you be sweet like a candy !

-Mosaic: 5 different pixelization pen sizes

-Layout: A vast collection of layouts in different shapes

-Photo frame: 10 different photo frame designs to suit your style

-Graffiti: Paint rich colors with different adjustable pen strokes

-Slideshow: Create slideshows with up to 50 images. Produce music videos with super support for all kinds of format, like mp3, m4a, aac and so on. Let your imagination go wild!

-Scrapbook: Design your personal scrapbook. Let your great tastes guide you through!

-Poster: Discover our vast poster collection

-Filmstrip: Supports horizontal and vertical filmstrip creation. Convert your filmstrip into a sketch with a single tap.

-Twinkle: Turn your photo into a piece of art and make it come to life!

-1-Tap Save: Save images in JPG or PNG format and 7 different resolutions

-1-Tap Share: Share photos and videos on social platforms or communication apps, such as Facebook, SnapChat, YouTube, Messenger, WhatsApp and so on.

★Wow!Filter: Special Effects Camera for Selfies or Video Recording

Make ordinary photos look fantastic with 60+ animated filter effects. Whether you’re on your own, with a friend, with family, or with however many people there are, Wow!Filter will preserve and add magic to your wonderful moments. Not all moments are fun, but Wow!Filter always is! Pie face game filter is waiting for you! Now we even have prom queen live filter to match your prom dress and fire dragon live filter to clean your bad mood.

★Venus Filter: Discover the Goddess Within You

Take a selfie, let Venus Filter detect your face, work its magic and get the look of your dreams, including Elf, Flora, Bow, Boheme and even Hepburn (Yes! Audrey Hepburn!). Reveal your true beauty and attract others without even trying.

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I tried this app solely for editing photos for my Instagram account. 🙂 I have found that this app is definitely packed with features.

Mostly I use the Grid feature. But for the purpose of reviewing this app, I also checked out the other features (though not all).

As you can see, you can edit the grid, layout, add smileys, add/edit text, add backgrounds etc. You can do a lot with this app.

I tried the slide show:

Scrapbook and Filmstrip:

There is also this feature that I liked, Twinkle, and it turns your photos into artworks:

I really hope they would add more artwork styles on Twinkle!

I think I was not able to try the Filters, because of course that would require taking a selfie (haha!). But it is a must try, most especially the Venus Filter. 🙂

The PhotoGrid works very much like a social media app: you can follow other users and like/comment on photos they have uploaded.

 

So I made a (movie scene) meme (I love memes!), using the Grid feature:

You have the option to use Filmstrip though instead of the Grid. I did not use the Filmstrip because you can only arrange each photo straight vertically or horizontally. I really wanted the whole photo to fit the requirements of Instagram (sort of square-ish in size) and make the most of the available space thus I used the Grid.

Try this app now! 🙂

PeN Chat, Social & Personal app review

Today’s review: PeN Chat, Social & Personal version 2.5.2.1

Google play link: PeN Chat app

Features (copied from Google play):

PeN is Connecting the World!

Getting in touch with friends and family is now better than ever:
– Free and unlimited voice and video calls and instant messages to other PeN users
– Free calls and SMS to non-PeN user or any valid and supported phone numbers online or offline using PeNNeY
– Share or Post updates, pictures, videos
– See what your friends are up
– Get notified for calls, chats or what your friends have posted or shared
– See where your friends are or share your location
– Send personal emergency alerts when you feel you have an emergency
– Discover and explore new places
– Earn PeNNeY daily while using the app’s social features
– Daily rewards and exciting prizes

For each new PeN user, or as we say Pen Pal, we give you a starting balance of 200 PeNNeY you can use to call and SMS to non-Pen users. You are also able to earn more PeNNeY for free so you wont run out of balance and can spend more time talking to your friends, even when they don’t have internet connection.

Now you can earn PeNNeY in various ways
– Rewards while using the app
– Special Offers
– In App Purchase
– Lucky draw

PeN is connecting the world to every person on the planet, from all corners of the globe, even to those who do not have internet connection, for free. We enable everyone with a smartphone to socially interact with anyone in the world who have a phone from wireless to wired. Additionally PeN is helping ensure personal safety and security anywhere on Earth.

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This app is quite a nice looking one. The purpose of this post is just to introduce this social media (plus messaging) app to you. I am still in the process of inviting some friends to use the app so I can demonstrate the other features. But for now, this is the initial review.

This is how the Home part looks like (above). There are several options to choose from: Chats, Calls, Contact, Timeline, Spot, SOS Places, Social and My Account.

If only I had friends on here (at the time of writing), I’m sure I’ll be able to demonstrate the above features better. 🙂 Now let us just move on to the other features.

One of the best features are: 1) ability to spot friends nearby 2) send SOS messages 3) get a list of places to visit such as restaurants and shops and also events that are happening near you. You can also join and interact in different communities within the PeN app. You can also earn PeNNey while using the app’s features. Earning more will give you more chances of winning prizes!

You can easily navigate within the app due to this nice looking sidebar. Also, you can edit your profile in any way you like. Although my review is limited, I think the features are really useful and I cannot wait to use them. I’d have to get my friends to use it too!

Try this app! 🙂

Quipsphere app review

Today, I am going to review a  Filipino-made entertainment and social media app called Quipsphere (version 1.0.9). It is free on Google play.

Google play: Quipsphere

There are fewer users as compared to Facebook and Twitter (it is fairly new), but it has potential to garner more users in the future due to its non-traditional approach in connecting people. The concept of this social media app is quite novel, because it focuses on users’ own voice messages or recording as the main communication platform, as opposed to text and images (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc). I do not know any other social media app that operates on the same level.

Basically, after signing up, you will be taken to the main interface with buttons at the bottom. The five buttons are: Campfire, Home/Newsfeed, Record, Chats and Spheres. If you press Campfire, three tabs will appear: Topics, Quippers and Spheres. Topics, of course, presents you with different topics that you can “quip” about (quip – recording and posting an audio/voice message). You can join that Topic and you can quip about it by pressing the Record button.

Quippers gives a you a list of active, prominent, and avid users of Quipshere. You are to build your reputation and thus be featured here. You can follow other users by pressing the “footprint” button next to their name (kinda works like twitter where you can follow people and let other people follow you). The last one is Spheres (not to be confused with the other Spheres button, next to Chat) gives you spheres (similar to threads in Topics) wherein you can follow. However, if you are only a follower of the sphere you are interested in, you are not allowed to join the thread (meaning you are only a spectator).

The other Spheres tab (next to the chat button), allows you to create your own sphere (by inviting friends) and lists down the spheres you are currently following. The Home button or the Newsfeed shows the posts of your friends and people you followed. You can reply to their quips with another audio message. You can also “requip” their posts, meaning you can share their posts on your profile wall. The Chat shows your chat history and last is the Spheres tab (which I have already explained before).

I forgot to mention that you can also attach a photo (and GIFs!) along with your quip. I think this is a good idea because users will always be drawn to visually appealing posts.

The app mainly functions to connect people, same with other social media apps, but it uses a different method which is voice messaging. I have mentioned before that this app truly has potential to get more users, it all just boils down to users’ preference. I think the app would be a great tool for artists and musicians to showcase their music. However, recording is only 12 seconds max, so this might be a problem as well (is that considered a snippet?). On a personal level, I think users dig the idea of being able to speak out their thoughts with clarity and emotion.

I repeat, using this app is a matter of preference. If you liked it, then good for you and the developer (support them!). My problem is I won’t really be able to maximize the function of this app because I am too shy to make quips haha. I am not a social butterfly, you see, I only have Facebook and Linkedin for online connections (I don’t even post statuses!). But if you are my opposite, you might like this.

To summarize my thoughts (and suggestions) on this app:

• unique and intriguing – mainly due to voice messaging as communication. Although I do have a suggestion: allow users to upload audio. We can also capture live events by recording them using our phone’s voice recorder and uploading it later to Quipsphere.
• A suggestion I’ve read on the app’s Google play profile (posted by a user) is reasonable: to add a Help or FAQ section (if not possible in the app itself, why not add the section to the app website?).
• not everyone’s cup of tea – others may like the app’s concept, but not all. Well, who knows? It might turn into a new trend.
• voice messages/posts must always be accompanied with images to make it more interesting and eye-catching
• minor problem: I cannot use my phone’s “Back” button when using the app (I own a Samsung smartphone – it is located on the bottom right, next to the home key). I can only use it on one occasion: after recording. Most of the time, I use the app’s back button (top left). It takes some getting used to. Or maybe my phone is at fault haha.
• Correct me if I’m wrong: no option to edit profile
• Kudos to the developer for giving out important updates (the app is definitely improving)

Try it!