Top free Android apps

With over a half a million apps available for download from Google Play (formerly known as the Market), it is pretty time consuming to weed out the good apples from the rotten ones. We've played around with quite a few of them and have come up with our favorites. We didn't bother rating any of them since they were all fantastic in their own right. Without further ado here they are:

1. Adobe Photoshop Express: A very handy app to manipulate your images on the fly.
2. Airport City/Paradise Island: This whole genre of games is very similar to SimCity from back in the day. Fun and very addictive.
3. Alchemy: This is a fantastic game that deals with the four primary elements - air, earth, fire and water.
4. Android Pro Widgets/Go Launcher: If you don't like the existing themes, these two apps give you a good choice of themes and widgets. Sadly there aren't too many themes available in the free version.
5. Angry Birds: Need we say more?
6. Autocad WS: It is amazing that you can literally walk around with Autocad schematics on your phone these days.
7. Blogger: We have actually used this app to write articles posted on this site. You get most of the blogging functionality in the app that you do in the web version.
8. CardioTrainer: There are other gym trainer apps but this seemed the most intuitive to use.
9. Box/Dropbox: They are both very similar but you get a lot more space with Box. 50GB vs. 2.5GB.
10. E*Trade Mobile Pro: Trade stocks much? This is the app for you. You don't need an E*Trade account to use it, but it is a lot more powerful if you do.
11. ESPN ScoreCenter: We especially love the alert feature for any team's (from any sport) game progress.
12. Facebook for Android: Even though it still has quirks, it is still the most stable version to stay in touch with Facebook.
13. gReader Pro: This is how Google Reader should have been.
14. HBO GO: Have an HBO subscription? You have to download this app. We loved being able to watch our favorite shows on the go.
15. JuiceDefender: To get a little extra juice out of your battery.
16. Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite/AVG Security: A little antivirus and security in case you misplace/lose your phone can't hurt now can it?
17. Mint.com Personal Finance: Like to stay on top of your bills and accounts? Then look no further.
18. Scan2PDF Mobile Lite: This was another one of our favorites. Say goodbye to the scanner.
19. Skype/Google +: These are definitely the two best video chat apps currently out there for the Android. Microsoft and Google... go figure!
20. Skyvi: This is SIRI for the Android. There is another app called IRIS but based on our comparison, Skyvi works better... for now.
21. SoundHound/Shazaam: Don't know the song you are listening to? Do you want to? Let your phone listen to the song and tell you what it is, who it is by, the album it is a part of, where you can buy it and lots more!
22. WhatsApp Messenger: Not all of us have Blackberry Messengers. This is probably the best alternative to staying in touch with those that do! Word to the wise, this isn't going to stay free for too long.
23. Wikipedia: The encyclopedia in your palm.
24. Wordfeud FREE: Very similar to Words with Friends.

A quick note here, some of these apps have paid versions but for the purpose of this list, we only used the out of the box free versions of all the applications. And finally, we realize apps keep getting added on a daily basis. As a result this list will be revisited and updated frequently.