Install or Not: Birthdays by Latein.me

Let’s start this review by pointing out the right application in the Google Play store. Since there are so many market positions that kind of do this same – show birthdays and anniversaries of your contacts – we had to pick one of them. This week we share our thoughts on “Birthdays” by “Latein.me”. Ensure that you pick the right one!

Ease of use
Before I get into the interface I would like to point out that the app, although free, has no Google ads included. This is something really uncommon in the Google ecosystem, so should be taken into account, even though the more advanced users have a clue how to remove Google Ads from application code or just block them using hosts method. We review applications as they are originally designed by the developer, so here is a huge plus. On one hand the interface is pretty simple, containing one main screen with all birthdays and anniversaries listed and a second one with settings. When it comes to ease of use usually the details make the difference. We didn’t like the menu with it is bloated with obscure buttons like the “Rate” or “Gifts”. Nor did we like the hidden sort options. We would like them much more if they were available from the first screen. This same goes for the search. On the other hand, the application contains a help button on the main screen, which should be placed somewhere more deeply. The help menu contains some important info but nothing we wouldn’t find out on our own. We have mixed thoughts when it comes to ease of use, that’s why a 3 out of 5 starts in the most adequate score.

Features
From adding a single date, through making backups and finishing by importing Facebook birthdays the application is complete and lacks no important features. We were surprised to even acquire Zodiac information in Chinese style. The notifications settings could be a little bit polished here and there allowing the users more freedom, but overall there is nothing we could really complain about. The program even allows us to customize a bit how the main screen looks. For example, if your contacts do not contain images, you can easily turn them off in settings. Considering that the app gets updated on daily basis adding more options, 5 out of 5 stars for features is totally reasonable in this case.

Speed
There is some lag while loading the main screen, because Birthdays needs to load all our contacts data. We noticed no slowdowns during usage. The applet is small, uses no more than 400KB of storage, but uses quite some RAM during usage (16MB for about 400 contacts). For slower devices this might not be acceptable. Disabling some of the functions may improve performance. We rate Birthdays by Latein.me at a poor 2 out of 5.

Install or not
Birthdays is a decent reminder application that ensure that you miss no important dates. While rich in functions and ad-free based it eats up a lot of your phone resources while processing your contacts. The interface could use some reflections. If you use an older phone and want the best experience we suggest that you search a little bit thru the Google Play store. There are many applications that kind of do the same. We dedicate this app for those who enjoy many functions and don’t really care about resources being eaten up by another small application.

Pros:

• Updates on daily basis
• Search, sorting included
• Notification reminder
• Free, no ads

Cons:

• Doesn’t work well with nonstandard UTF-8 names from Facebook
• Menu includes bloat buttons
• Heavy on resources

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