by Robert Abby

Created on: November 24, 2010

One of the first steps you can take to customize your android powered phone more to your preferences is by adjusting your messaging settings, and few apps out there give you quite as many options as Handcent SMS.  Handcent is a powerful messaging application that, once downloaded, will overtake all of the messaging on your phone, whether you have a stock messaging system, or the HTC Sense messaging interface, which vary by some degree.

Unfortunately, Handcent does not come with a new keyboard, but it does come with a customizable interface, with puck notifications, and quick reply.  What are push notifications?  That is when you receive a dialog box regardless of what you are doing on your phone, even if it is locked.  This feature is standard on the iPhone, and many people that migrate from apples hardware to a standard Android phone find that this feature is nowhere to be found in the native environment.

The Handcent push notification box will actually go above and beyond what most iPhone users have become accustomed to, and offer you a plethora of other options.  You can reply immediately through a comment box, or delete the message outright without having to travel all the way to your messaging app.  You can scroll between newer and older messages, and organize on the fly in ways that you have not been able to do before.

Now that all sounds fine and dandy, but what about looks?  Well Handcent is one of the first applications designed for android to do a pretty good job of bringing the sweet sexy appeal of the iPhone messaging dialog to Android.  The don't stop at just giving it to, in true Linux fashion, almost every nook and cranny of the look and feel of your messaging atmosphere can be tinkered and tooled into an optimal interface for your pleasure.  You can even head on over to the Android Marketplace and download a number of Font packs designed specifically by Handcent for their app, which offers you a new fun way to display your messages.

Usually to offer this kind of functionality in an application that is free, there has to be some kind of catch, but thankfully, Handcent offers this app for free to android users, and not so much as a single ad graces the interface.  Not to mention that even with the pile of goodies that this app brings to the table, there is little to no slowdown noticeable to your phone, or your messaging.  

All in all, this app is an all-star of the Android Marketplace.  If you enjoy tinkering, and customizing things to your liking, than you will love this app.  If not, then thankfully there are a bunch of other options out there for you to try, offering simple push notifications, to other full on SMS suites.  Enjoy!

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