App Review: easyTube

Who needs Google? The company decided not to bother with an official YouTube app for Windows Phone and was initially met with outrage, but now we don't need them. Windows Phone has already been blessed with two incredible 3rd-party YouTube apps--SuperTube and LazyTube--that have both grown in features and design thanks to good 'ol competition. Now we're getting another new YouTube app that could place the final nail in the official-Google-app coffin: wsoftvn's easyTube. The app promises to offer the feature-set of both its competitors--HD video, full YouTube user experience, video downloading and more--for the low, low price of free. Can the app fulfill its promise or does it fall flat on its face? Well, it's somewhere in between. For more on what we mean, click on past the break for our full review!



The Basics
If you've ever tried those previously mentioned YouTube apps, firing up easyTube for the first time will be a pretty familiar experience. The app opens to 'Search' and you can pivot within this first panorama to 'Browse' (which shows categories), 'Most Viewed', and 'User's Page' (which is the settings menu). Down below you have the appbar which gives you three buttons dedicated to the video downloading functionality (current downloads, offline clips, and a folder list) and one more button for 'My Account' which is used to see your Favorites, Uploads, and Subscription videos. Just beneath those buttons when you expand the appbar, you have options to sort videos by relevance, date, view count or rating. Tapping any of the three download buttons will take you to the same panorama, and will show you what's currently downloading, what's already saved, and folders in which they are organized into. With saved videos you also have the ability to tap on a speaker icon next to any in a list to listen to the audio only.

Once you tap to open a video, the experience once again is very similar to how other apps work. You're greeted with the video automatically playing in a small preview window, and all round it are the options to like or dislike, read the description, and share to Twitter or Facebook. Below all of that on the same page you have the video's comments and a link to contribute your own. Pivot over once to the right and you have a list of Related videos, and once more to see the author's videos. In the condensed appbar below, you have the playback controls for the video window as well as a button to open fullscreen. Swipe up and the appbar reveals its full options which offers to favorite the video, add the video to a playlist, subscribe, download the video, and finally to switch between all of the resolutions available. The video page fully supports landscape as well for those with slide-out QWERTY keyboards like the HTC Arrive.

There's no denying it: you get a lot for the buck you don't spend on easyTube.

The Good
There's no denying it: you get a lot for the buck you don't spend on easyTube. The app offers a well-rounded mix of the best features from its competitors, which is phenomenal for being free. The way subscriptions are formatted in the app isn't directly obvious, but having them organized by author in 'folders' and showing only the most recent video makes a lot more sense than having a list of videos thrown together. We also really enjoyed the video downloading feature and, even though a few here or there didn't work (usually HD clips), we've actually had more success with easyTube than other apps with this feature. Another thing we thought the app nailed was the fullscreen video player which offers the most controls of any (we particularly liked the next/previous video buttons). We also felt easyTube did a decent job with the layout of its dedicated video pages; having comments integrated below the video is completely intuitive and we also like how compact the video windows and options area was. Besides that, we really can't tell you just how feature rich this app is and the fact that it includes HD streaming and video downloading for free is the best one-two punch you could have against SuperTube Free and LazyWorm's YouTube. That being said, there are some glaring issues we saw in easyTube...

The UI needs an overhaul, the HD quality needs improvement, and the audio only feature is frustrating.

The Bad
When you have to press a button in the appbar to watch a video in fullscreen and can only press the hardware back button to quit it, you know you have a UI problem. That's exactly what the biggest issue with easyTube is: a very sloppy, unintuitive, and inconsistent interface. That was one example, but there's also the fact that you have three buttons in the appbar of the main panorama that take you to the exact same panorama, just different sections. While some may find that convenient, it would be much more economical to consolidate all three into a 'Downloads' section to avoid confusion. There are lots more examples of those kind of issues and we feel the developer really needs to tinker with a lot of these UI decisions. Besides that, there's also the fact that easyTube is noticeably uglier compared to the excellent LazyWorm's YouTube and the dramatically improved UI of SuperTube Free. Besides the UI there are more issues to be ironed out. For one, the audio only feature of downloaded videos is somewhat broken. You tap on the speaker to start listening to audio and you're supposed to tap on it again to stop it, but if you try to do that it fails to work nearly 100% of the time. That means the audio continues to play even if you don't want it to and the only way to stop it that we found was to open the full video and then quit back out of it. Then there's the second misstep and one that could prove the most difficult to fix: the HD streaming quality is worse compared to other apps. We don't know how this works, but watching the same The Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer in easyTube had much more artifacting and lacked detail compared to SuperTube's and LazyWorm's free offerings.

Conclusion
While easyTube packs a punch with its amazing feature set for the price, it's not perfect and needs some significant work. The UI needs an overhaul, the HD quality needs improvement, and the audio only feature is frustrating.  However, easyTube still offers a lot when compared to its free competitors (LazyWorm's YouTube lacks HD, SuperTube Free lacks unlimited downloads) and asks for nothing in return (except for a few ad clicks). If you can live with its mostly minor sacrifices, we don't think you'll regret picking it up.

easyTube wsoftvn FREE Version 1.4