Review: Readit

Score:

78%

Readit brings you the same feature set as you would find on Reddit (reddit.com), but wraps it up inside an application instead of an HTML-based page. That allows the Readit designers to work with Windows Phone 8 and create a much richer experience to read, navigate, and interact with. It's one of the best looking Reddit clients on Windows Phone, but are these good looks backed up by smart and usable code?

Author: Message Across Studios

Version Reviewed: 1.4.2.0

Buy Link | Download / Information Link

Readit has a strong line in distinctive typography and design. From the bold fonts in various shades of black and white, to the clear and easy to read fonts for the smaller information tags that allow you to see details of each Reddit topic (the subreddits), Readit looks very smart and swish. It's probably the best looking Reddit client on Windows Phone.

Perhaps the only issue I might want to raise is during the list of articles and links inside a subreddit. The large fonts here reduce the number of stories that can be displayed on the index screen, which leads to a lot more scrolling to see what goes on. Reddit is a busy place, and Readit sometimes struggles to cope with a huge volume of stories in a subreddit or a filter inside the subreddit.

I would love to see a better level of font zoom on offer here. Readit has a significant number of settings to play with, so one extra choice would not be the end of the world. The client is also set up to work with multiple user accounts on Reddit, and you can switch between them quickly through the settings.

The flow through the app is a simple one. You open up the app and have your choice of subreddits on display. Click on one and you'll be give a list of topics in that category - with a swipe to the side you can look at the latest new topics, popular topics, the highest rated topics or controversial topics. Go into a single topic and you can see both the comments on the post, the post itself, and if it links out to another story on the web, the top two thirds of the screen is a browser view of the page.

This is really useful. Readit takes the basic idea of Reddit, and with this 'browser in article' view makes it a far better mobile experience than the mobile web page of Reddit, or other Windows Phone clients which do not have the equivalent of this 'super preview' mode.

Add to that a single/double/triple tap methodology to allow you to quickly cast your up or down vote from your phone and you have the main Reddit features close to hand, even though you are staying inside the Readit app for as much time as possible.

Reddit is of course known for the debates in the comments as much as for the quality of the links in each subreddit. Readit handles the commenting as well as any client can, with indenting and threading of topics on show, and the ability to tap and reply to any comment. The icons used in the comment editing system are not clear and easy to understand on the first few interactions, but Readit is a client I think many will keep coming back to, so you will get used to them in short order.

Readit also offers access to the 'sidebar' contents of a topic. This space is a highly customisable feature in a subreddit where each moderator can add useful information, guidance, text, and links. This is a nice touch, and while it doesn't contribute directly to the flow of information, it helps boost the community feeling of Readit.

Your messages and inbox can also be accessed from the front screen of Readit. The app has certainly gone out of its way to bring over the major elements of the Reddit platform, in order to be as comprehensive and fully featured as possible.

Outside of the application, you can still pick up Reddit alerts through a mix of toast notifications and the live tile support. Each subreddit can have its own live tile on your home screen, either as an icon-based title that simply names the subreddit, or as a media-based title which uses linked images from the subreddit to illustrate the tile.

It's a nice personalisation touch, which uses the deep linking ability of Windows Phone to good effect. I think I would have preferred to see more options to configure these titles, perhaps with unused story counts, feedback, or other details on the 'flipside' of the tile. At the moment they're tiles, but not especially live. Still, group four of them in a tight cluster on your home screen and you have really fast access to your favourite subreddits each day.

There are a number of Reddit clients available for Windows Phone - it's one area where there seems to be as much choice as other mobile platforms, but Readit has impressed me with a mix of smart layout, good choices in the UI, and a focus on speed and smoothness. This is one very well developed client that any serious Reddit user should consider, even in trial form, to see if it works well with their use case.

