Ok, so I've been a beta user of Freenews (FreeRange Communications) and I like it a lot. However, they are now out of beta and want $40 PER YEAR for their software. I've also used Viigo, which is totally free, but has non-standard navigation (at least on a Pearl anyway), and seems to time-out on images more often than freenews. Plus it seems to have a real problem downloading full articles, at least compared to freenews.
So who makes a good Blackberry newsreader that is free or at least has a low one-time purchase price? I read a couple dozen Blackberry news sites on a regular basis and i also read Engadget which has over 1,000 posts per month and I'd like to settle on a good, cheap news reader.
Yeah I've just ended up using Google Reader with Opera Mini for my feed needs. I thought that Viigo was cumbersome to use, not too mention did not completely sync with google reader which I use on my desktop.
I'm going to follow up to my original post here as I've dug up a couple more readers. The interesting thing is that both of these newsreaders are actually made by Freerange, Inc. They seem to provide branded readers to other companies.
NewsGatorGo is the most similar to the full-on FreeNews reader, complete with folder hierarchies, and standard navigation keys. However, they've crippled it by not displaying images! If they ever ad that capability, I would definitely use it exclusively.
The second is also made by Freerange, but is branded as the Wall Street Journal Mobile Reader. It displays images and has the standard navigation keys, but doesn't group feeds or even sort by them. So all news from all your feeds are in the same place. I'm using it right now with ONLY blackberry news feeds added, so its not a big issue. However, if I wanted to add stock quotes, social networking site feeds, and other very different data, then it would be a mess.
I also tried PicoNews, which is totally free, but really couldn't stand it long enough to even really test it out. Its one of those apps where instead of a button click opening the article or whatever other function makes sense, it launches the full menu. Was there once a Blackberry that didn't have a menu key, because otherwise I can't figure out for the life of me why someone would want the application to work this way.
BTW, sorry for not being able to post the direct links. I looked them all up, but it won't let me post them until I have 10 posts on this site and this is only my 8th. :-(
I am using freerange with 22 feeds right now and do not pay anything. Less memory overhead than viigo and just as good for news feeds. It just lacks the additional stuff like flight info and ebooks.
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
