Facebook just now released Facebook Home for your android devices. As of this review, Im testing the app using my Samsung Galaxy S3. To sum it up, Facebook Home replaces your homepage of your android devices into your Facebook news feed. For those who barely use Facebook, these changes might sound like an overkill; however, this is perfect for those who wants to be up-to-date with their newsfeed and is trigger happy with the status updates. NOTE: not all devices are compatible.
First Impression:
As I already stated in the intro - your homepage is now under Facebook. The moment you unlock your phone, you are greeted with your friends status update (with text update, you will have their cover picture as the background). You can immediately like/comment your friends post without even unlocking your phone! Holding the post will let you view the full picture posted; by tapping anywhere on the screen, you will bring out an icon of your profile picture; you can drag this to either open the Facebook Messenger app, your app list and last opened app.
BAD NEWS - your widgets and folders does not work with Facebook Home. Which (in my opinion) just completely removed 80% of the reason why i love the old interface. In exchange, you have 3 bonus button (Status, photo, check-in) that speeds up your Facebook status update. Also, Facebook Home also hides your top toolbar (you can still access them by dragging it down) - this means it gets really inconvenient to tell time.
On the plus notes, any post that is related to you (or chat) pops up immediately on the front page - giving you instant access to your Facebook.
Test Drive:
Although it is inconvenient to lose all of your widgets and having to reorganize your apps, Facebook Home works very well with the Samsung Galaxy S3. Facebook updates are sync almost immediately as every time I unlock my phone I immediately see a new post. Scrolling through the news feed feels natural and it is very responsive. I do feel that this app kills my battery pretty fast due to the automatic sync. The highlight of this is the dedicated Facebook Messenger (which is a different app) that allows you to have a chat box ready 24/7 |full review here|.
Final Opinion:
Although it is a smooth running app - I am not much of a Facebook user. It is cool to be able to see my friends post instantaneously, but sometimes they can post pictures I do not want strangers to see whats on my phone. If you may notice, I dislike the app since widgets and folders are now gone - giving the menu page a more disorganize feel. Is it a keeper? Not in my opinion, but then again - I am not much of a Facebook users; some of you may already see it impossible to live without.
Price: FREE
Rating: 3 out of 5 - Although Facebook Home works really well, it not equal to what you exchanged it for (shorter battery, now widgets/folder, border line creepy).
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