Love Keeping In Touch? Handcent Is For You!

How many of you like to text your friends? You're all nodding your heads, aren't you? Well, the Android does, of course, have built in texting functionality, but, honestly, it's a bit boring. Some of us like to spice things up, and I'm hoping that your with me on this one, because there's not much that's better than customization.
Handcent SMS is available for free in the Android Market, and is a fairly simple application. If you want, you can download it and just use it for your text messages without using the customization, but you would then be missing out on some of the greatest aspects of Handcent SMS.

Main Screen
Once you select Handcent to run the application, it will start you on this screen. In the top right hand corner is a button that will take you to the Handcent settings, and in the top left hand corner is a button that will start a new text for you.

From here you can treat this like your regular system messaging app, but I recommend that you press your menu button, and select Settings.

Bam!

This is where the magic happens. There are forty-nine entries on the settings menu. Seven of those entries are actually additional menus! You can change your font size, change your font, change your background, change your notification appearance, decide whether or not you want a pop-up field to answer your texts in when they come, change your conversation style, enable quick composing, and even spoof your phone as a different device when sending messages.

As there are far to many different settings for me to write about, I'm going to give you a quick overview of the ones that I have adjusted on my phone.

Pop-up
This causes messages to pop up on your screen over your other applications so that you can answer it. I personally have no use for this. With Android's built in notification system, it is much more practical for me to use the Notification bar. But, if you like the idea of having a pop-up box, by all means, activate it.

Notification Settings
I don't like to have my phone look just like everyone else's, and that is why this setting is so enjoyable to me. From here you can set the appearance of your notification icon, decide whether you want the number of unread messages to be displayed in the notification bar, and set whether you want the message to scroll through without you having to open it up...You know, just in case you have nosy people around who might read your messages in your notification bar without unlocking the phone. A quick tip here; if you decide to use Handcent, you need to go into the system messaging menu and turn the notifications off, otherwise you will receive two notifications every time someone sends you a message.

Handcent Keyboard

This is actually a separate download on the Android Market, but is coded by the Handcent people, and is integrated well with it. It is a T9 onscreen keyboard, and, while you may think, “What do I need that for, I have a slide-out/system keyboard?”, this keyboard does make one-handed operation not only feasible, but also fairly simple. Adding to the dictionary is a simple matter, and, all around, I think it is a good addition.

Overall, this is one of the applications on my Moment that I use the most. I don't have any problems with crashes, and it provides me with the customization that I yearn for so much. It's free to, so don't let anything stop you from downloading it and trying it out!