Most of you will probably agree if I say that the stock video player for Android is a pretty solid application that caters to our needs of playing videos on our beloved phone. For those who find the stock video player a little short in features, well, the Android Market hosts several third-party apps that will cater to your requirements for seamless and almost skip-free video playing and also provide many additional features.
As part of our effort to explore the best alternatives to the stock apps, we’ve scoured the Android Market for some of the best alternative video players for Android. We hope that you’ll find one, if not all of them, suited to your needs and preferences.
This article is part of the Beat The Stock series that explores the best replacements for your stock apps. Other articles in this series include -
- Messaging (SMS) Apps
- Dialers and Contacts
- Web Browsers
- Music Players
- Video Players (Currently viewing)
- Instant Messengers
- Camera
- Widgets
Stock Video Player for Android – Videos
The stock video player for Android, simply called – Videos is a basic video player app that lets you, well, play your video files. It lists down all the videos stored on your device in a thumbnail view. While playing a video, it doesn’t allow you to do much except toggling the wide or full screen view. But in terms of quality of playback, the app does it job pretty well.
There’s another version of the video player for Android and this one supports playback of movies rented from the Android Market.
Best Alternatives to Stock Video Player App:
mVideo Player
One thing that you’ll appreciate about this video player is the fact that it not only serves as a video player but also lets you stream videos from other sources. The app supports other apps installed on your Android phone and can be used as a video player for these apps. In a way, it functions like a video streaming app.
mVideo Player also supports subtitle and gives you on-screen information such as time and battery. Using the app is quite a pleasure as well, thanks to its intuitive controls. The app also gives you a video library with movie posters and inbuilt poster search. You can also search IMDB from within the app.
Listing videos is done via posters, thumbnails or clean and simple. There are quite a few options for you to customize how you want the player to function. Most importantly, video playback of this app is very smooth and this makes watching videos on your Android phone a real pleasure.
Download the mVideo Player
MX Video Player
MX Video Player is another great alternative to the stock video player for Android. In fact, it’s probably the most advanced video player available right now. For one thing, this app is said to be the first Android video player that does multi-core decoding. As such, it plays videos at up to 70% performance improvement than most single-core Android phones.
Other nice features of this app include pinch zoom for easily zooming in and out by pinching and swiping across screen, scrolling subtitle, better subtitle readability and for Android tablet users, this app supports Honeycomb OS. The app also has the video codecs that will allow you to play almost any video file formats on your Android device.
Download MX Video Player
MoboPlayer
We’ve reviewed this app before and deemed it as one of the best video player app for Android. Aside from all the bells and whistles that you’ll normally hear about other third-party video player apps, MoboPlayer extends its features further by adding playlists. This lets you organize your videos into a folder on the SD card and set up a playlists of videos.
Additionally, Mobo Video Player also supports all video formats, popular subtitle formats such as SRT, ASS and SAA, subtitles built-in MKV, MPV, MOV and others, multi-audio streams and sub-titles, video streaming through HTTP and RSTP protocols, and thumbnail displays of videos.
If some of the file formats do not play, you can play them through soft decoding. The playback is pretty smooth and on-screen gestures to fast forward videos and manage volume and brightness are very useful while watching videos.
Download MoboPlayer
Vital Player
I found Vital player to perform better with some file formats when compared to other video players. Vital player also lets you resume previously played video, supports streaming and also has screen lock/unlock. You can also capture screenshots of the videos and share video files.
The app allows you to control brightness, volume and screen size while playing a video. Vital Player plays almost any video formats and the performance is quite smooth.
Download Vital Player
QQ Player
Somehow if it happens that you don’t like the four video player apps we’ve listed above, this one should do the trick. QQ Player is last video player alternative for Android on our list but it is in no way inferior to the other video players. QQ Player is a pretty solid app featuring support for most popular video formats such as AVI, FLV, MP4 and others. It also supports SRT, SMI plug-in subtitle and MKV embedded subtitle.
One thing that you’ll appreciate about this app is that it auto detects video formats of the videos that you play and makes your video experience smoother and of better quality. The app is very light and will not strain your Android device’s memory when running. There are quite a few preference options for you to customize the player as you wish. The app has a nice UI and you’ll love the app’s default skin.
Download QQ Player
Mobo Video Player Pro
Another video player that deserves an honorable mention is Mobo Video Player Pro. It has all the regular features and plays most formats. One unique feature is that it also allows you to hide videos that, well, you don’t want others to see.
It is a nice app but the performance-wise it lagged a bit when we tested it. Perhaps its just not suitable for my device and may perform better on your Android phone.
Download Video Player Pro
Final Thoughts
There goes our list of the best alternative video players for Android. There are quite a few high quality apps to choose from and all of them are free. Check them out and get the best video player for your device!
Did we miss out your favorite alternative video players for Android? Have you used any of the video players we’ve mentioned? If so, which of these apps is your favorite video player? Feel free to tell us your favorite player in the comments.
