Watching videos has become a very common practice to kill boredom. Not only people watch videos as everyday activity in leisure hours but also while they are traveling from one place to another. Although Android’s default video player has many powerful features with primary user interface if you want to take your video watching experience on Android to next level with advanced features, you certainly need to replace your default Android video player with other best video players for Android.
Fortunately, there is a few third party paid as well as free video player apps for Android that are quite useful and reliable. The scope of Android video players has enlarged to a greater extent in recent months. Now users can avail subtitles, create playlists, multi-task, edit videos and even listen to audio clips in a single app. All these needs and failure of basic Android video player in providing these functionalities has led to the quest for the best video player for Android phones and tablets.
Contents
- The Rise of Video Watching on Smartphones and Video Players for Android
- Top 10 Best Video Players for Android to Play Any Video File Formats
- 1. MX Player
- 2. VLC Player for Android
- 3. KM Player (Play, HD, Video)
- 4. BSPlayer Free
- 5. MoboPlayer
- 6. HD Video Player
- 7. GPlayer
- 8. Wondershare Player
- 9. Feather – Music/Video Player
- Other Free Video Players for Android Worth Giving a Try
- 10. mVideoPlayer
- 11. QQPlayer
- 12. DicePlayer
- 12. RockPlayer 2
- The Pro Review from TechReviewPro
The Rise of Video Watching on Smartphones and Video Players for Android
In the last decade, we were comfortable with using DVDs, Music CDs, and other physical means to play media files (watching movies, music videos and so on). But, what’s the current scenario? Now we download/buy most of the media content from the Internet and can experience it on our desktop and laptops. Say what? Yes! Smartphones!
With the rapid increase in the number of smartphone users across the world, people started to enjoy videos and movies on-the-go right on their smartphone devices. And, that’s what has encouraged the smartphone manufacturers for improving the smartphone displays. Now, you can easily get smartphones supporting HD & 4K resolution media content with the help of AMOLED (or Super AMOLED) or IPS display screens.
It doesn’t end here, you need a video player which is able to play the high-quality videos with ease and with no stutters (It’ll ruin your video experience!). So, we’ve put the best video players in the list below to help you along.
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Top 10 Best Video Players for Android to Play Any Video File Formats
There are a large number of “so-called” best Android video player apps available in the Google Play store. Thus, it might turn out to be a difficult task to find a perfect video player that suits your needs. Ultimately, we have compiled a list of best video player apps for Android.
1. MX Player
The most loved video player for Android would be none other than MX Player. It’s immensely popular among the users. And, whether it’s the best video player or not, that would come down to your personal preference. It can play most of the videos with ease. You get the ability of Multi-core decoding of videos to improve the performance of running a media content. It’s rich in features, you can pinch to zoom in/out, baked in subtitle gestures, kids lock and more. In its kid’s lock feature, children can only watch videos.
However, you get in-app advertisements when you’re connected to the Internet. So, if you want to enjoy an Ad-free version, you can get the MX Player Pro for around $6. That’s just for removing advertisements. You don’t get any premium functionalities, though.
Price: Free and paid ($5.99)
2. VLC Player for Android
VLC Media Player is a highly preferred video player for Windows OS, but this free video player is also as a popular media player for Android devices. Well, I guess I don’t need to introduce this player much. But, if you’re the one who is getting to know about it for the first time, then you should simply know that it’s the most popular video player for PC of all time. It supports a wide variety of video formats for free. It’s an open source project which is being loved by millions of users as a powerful cross-platform video player.
The app supports – auto-rotation, aspect ratio adjustments and a few gestures to control volume and brightness. Besides playing movies and video clips, the app can also play audio clips. Though the hardware decoding works only with a selected device sets. It offers a pretty simple user interface and surprisingly, it is free of in-app advertisements. So, you’ll never have to worry about getting a pro version just to remove the annoying ads like MX Player.
Price: Free
Also Read: Top 10 Best MP3 Music Downloader Android Apps for Free Music
3. KM Player (Play, HD, Video)
KM Player is yet another loved video player for Android. It comes with baked in support for floating windows which lets you continue watching the video while texting or browsing the web. Also, you get one finger gesture support, so you can control/toggle almost anything easily.
If you are having a decent internet connection, you can directly watch videos you’ve stored on cloud storage (Google Drive).
Price: Free
4. BSPlayer Free
BSPlayer is certainly among one of the best free and paid video players for Android devices. It is a hardware accelerated video player for Android smartphones which means with its hardware accelerated decoding, it increases processing speed and reduces battery consumption thus boosting your Android smartphone battery life. Also, the free video player app for Android supports all videos and media files types such as Avi, Divx, Flv, Mkv, MOV, mpg, mts, mp4, m4v, Rmvb, WMV, 3gp, mp3, FLAC, etc. as well as streaming content such as RTMP, RTSP, MMS. Moreover, the users can also enjoy multiple audio streams and subtitles.
The biggest upside of this app is that it allows you to play video clips directly from your uncompressed RAR files. However, a downside, the free version of BSPlayer for Android is an ad-supported version. To remove the advertisements you’ve to pay 371 INR. If you want serious multi-core hardware acceleration to play videos, then this should do the work. When enabled, you’ll experience smoother video playback with less battery consumption.
Price: Free and paid ($6.75)
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5. MoboPlayer
MoboPlayer is certainly one of the best video players for Android phones and tablets. The player comes with the ability to play videos of all sizes and supports a huge number of video formats. In addition to playing videos that already exists on your device, the player can also be used to stream and watch online movies and videos.It relies on the software decoding tech mostly which lets you set any playback format for the videos, as per your convenience.
Additionally, the app comes with widely used subtitle formats – SRT, ASS, and SAA. Along with watching videos, you may also perform multitasking via the app’s floating window mode. Well, the user interface isn’t great. But, you can definitely live with the UI offered. No other fancy features, and it’s free. However, if you are looking for paid option, Mobo Player Pro is a good choice.
Price: Free and paid – $4.99
6. HD Video Player
HD Video Player is a modified version of VLC Player. The User Interface has been customized for people who like dark video players rather than a video player with flashy orange color (That’s the original VLC). As VLC is an open source project. The developer has perfectly modified to attract the category of users who love VLC but don’t really appreciate its user interface.
Price: Free
7. GPlayer
Who doesn’t love something which offers almost all premium features for free? Well, it’s the same case here. GPlayer is a free video player for Android devices that is specially designed for multi-taskers. The video player supports floating popup feature to enhance multi-tasking experience and also comes with the multi-window support. Through its multi-window and floating pop-up feature, videos can be played anywhere, amid whatever work you are doing. You’ll have to try it out, whether it works on your case with multi-window (It depends on the screen ratio sometimes).
You can also customize the look of the player by setting up your own theme as it comes with lots of pre-installed themes to choose. However, it offers in-app purchases to unlock some of the features. Although it has not yet been updated with the official support for devices running on Android 6.0.1. But, we didn’t encounter any issues while using the video player. It works just fine as expected. However, we can’t guarantee what happens on your device, if you encounter annoying bugs, try reaching out through the developer’s email.
Price: Free
Wondershare Player is an impressive free video player for Android. It is an all-in-one video player for Android, as it allows you to play videos offline as well as stream them online for free. In addition, it also supports playing only music. So, it’s both a video and an audio player supporting all video formats in the way.
Wondershare Player lets you discover new and exciting videos with it. It not only plays raw video content but also offers you an online portal to browse viral and popular videos picked from sources like YouTube and Vevo. You could watch them all from one single app without moving on to another. Moreover, if you are busy and not in the mood of watching any video now, you have the “Watch Later” option to watch the video later without losing it.
The fun doesn’t end here either, the player provides means to enjoy online streaming of video content from CNN, BBC, and many more video streaming sites including YouTube. So, you could enjoy full TV series online as well. It gives you the option to play the media content across all of your devices which includes TV, phone, and connected PC. If you have the Wondershare desktop program installed on your PC, then videos can even be transferred between the two ends in almost no time.
Price: Free
9. Feather – Music/Video Player
Feather is just a simple video player for Android, supporting a wide variety of video formats. It looks like it isn’t something anymore maintained by the developers but if you were looking for a video player which consumes a negligible amount of memory. This one is definitely for you then.
Price: $1.86
Other Free Video Players for Android Worth Giving a Try
10. mVideoPlayer
mVideoPlayer, though the last but is a very sleek video player app for Android devices with a straightforward and easy to use interface. The app is available in free as well as a paid version. However, unlike the other Android video player apps mentioned above, it only plays those video formats which are supported by the concerned device.
The app categorizes your movies, TV shows and personal videos into their respective groups. Moreover, posters and additional information about the relevant film/show are automatically downloaded over the data connection. Additionally, the app comes with built-in subtitle support sponsored by OpenSubtitles.org
Price: Free and Paid
11. QQPlayer
QQPlayer is another free video player for Android devices that supports videos of almost all the types – AVI, FLV, 3GP, MKV and much more. Moreover, QQPlayer is the only free and reliable Android app that can play 3D movies too. Well, if you do not have a grip of the various accents, the apps subtitle support is surely going to help you.
QQPlayer is a video player app for Android, but it also works as a powerful video editing app for Android, as it allows you to create, edit and convert videos files into audio clips. The app has a highly customizable UI (user interface). Like VLC Media Player, QQPlayer is also an open-source media player for PCs and perhaps that’s why it offers so many features free of cost.
Price: Free
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Update: Below Mentioned Popular Free Video Players for Android are no Longer Active
12. DicePlayer
DicePlayer is yet another free video player app for Android devices that does not offer as much functionality as other best Android video players, but it does work quite effectively. Although this app can play all the video formats, it is known as the best player for MKV-type files. The app also supports subtitles.
However, it is worth noting that this video player app for Android has been reported as buggy in few devices like the last year introduced – OnePlus One. Moreover, the app offers playback speed control that can be as much as x2.0. Furthermore, the app can also stream online videos via HTTP Protocol.
Price: Free
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12. RockPlayer 2
RockPlayer 2 is a must have, one of the best video players for Android phones and tablets. The app supports high-end videos – 720p, 1080p and even 2k/4k Ultra HD videos too. Hence, the app utilizes your processor to the fullest thereby giving a rock experience. Additionally, the app also plays audio files quite perfectly.
The Android video player app also comes with gesture support, so the users can tweak the volume and brightness by just moving their fingers back and forth. Users have full access to 15 pre-designed buttons for every function. Furthermore, for privacy reasons, the users can also hide videos and even edit them.
Price: Free
Also Read: Top 10 {Free} Best Download Manager for Android
The Pro Review from TechReviewPro
If you love open source projects, then you’ll definitely go with the VLC Player. There’s no hidden additional charge nor in-app advertisements. MX Player is a quality coded app appreciated by most of the Android users. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should get it installed. And, if you don’t like the in-app advertisements, you’ll need to upgrade to MX Player Pro or simply switch to a free video player without in-app advertisements. Want to try out something new? KM Player lets you play with floating windows enhancing your multi-tasking skills. Other video players have separate pros and cons. You should go ahead and try each one of them because you never know which one might appeal you according to your requirements.
Let us know in the comments section below about the video player you use on your Android smartphone and do you support open source applications? or apps which involve separate premium plans?
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I also like Bubble UPnP with Chromecast support and ArkMC with smooth video streaming and playback. Worth a try.