The Best PDF Viewer for Android

Adobe Reader, Free

Adobe Reader is the mobile version of Adobe's standard desktop PDF viewer. It's a very basic app, consisting of a rudimentary file explorer and the viewer component. Select a PDF file from the 'Recently Viewed' or 'PDF Files' tab, and it opens automatically. There are three view modes: continuous scroll; in which the PDF is presented as a single long page with black lines to denote page breaks; fit to screen, in which each page fits vertically or horizontally to the limit of your phone's screen and pages are advanced one at a time; or reflow, in which Adobe Reader switches to a full-screen interface and the information on the page is rearranged for better display on the small screen.

PDF Gview, Free

PDF Gview is a free alternative to the standard Adobe Reader. It is not a stand-alone app; it begins to render a PDF document when you open one in your Android web browser. Unfortunately, this app has a myriad of problems properly displaying PDFs of any kind - with many tested documents it would not load any pages after the first, and performance was generally sluggish. Between the poor performance and an inability to view PDFs saved on the phone's storage card, it is difficult to recommend PDF Gview over the official Adobe app.

Beam Reader, Free to Try, $9.99 For Full License

Beam Reader may be downloaded free of charge, but will cease working after ten days, at which time you must buy the $9.99 license key to continue to use the app. Please note that many potential customers in the Android Market have reported that the app will not function at all in the free mode, even though they have not reached the end of the trial period. The app features slightly faster rendering, but a poor user interface that opens up on a simple nested file explorer - it will not automatically list the PDF files on your phone or storage card. Beam Reader also has draw issues and seems to have trouble properly displaying all PDF files.

ezPDF Reader, $1.99

EzPDF Reader is a paid app that lists many features above and beyond the standard Adobe Reader. To start with, it has a home page interface that makes finding the PDFs on your phone quick, while also telling you where in the file tree they're located (very useful for retrieving on a computer later). While it only has a page-by-page display mode, the scrolling ribbon at the bottom of the interface makes finding individual pages easy. The pinch-to-zoom gesture is fast, but font rendering is not quite as quick as RepliGo Reader, even if it is faster than any of the free alternatives. The Search and Outlines (table of contents) buttons makes finding individual pages or phrases very easy.

RepliGo Reader, $4.99

RepliGo Reader is the most popular paid PDF viewer for Android, and in testing displayed extremely fast zooming and rendering and a polished interface. The file explorer is presented in exactly the same way as Adobe Reader, and it also features a page-by-page viewing mode or a text reflow mode for easier reading. While RepliGo is the fastest PDF reader available for Android, it isn't quite as easy to use as ezPDF - the navigation ribbon at the bottom of the screen is smaller and tends to be a little jerky. RepliGo seems to handle very large PDF documents, such as manuals with illustrations, much better than any other PDF viewer, free or paid.

Verdict

If you'd like to avoid spending money and just want an easy way to view PDFs on your Android phone, it's hard to go wrong with the official Adobe Reader. It's simple and serviceable, and a much better solution than the other free alternatives available. If you find yourself constantly viewing PDF files on your Android phone, you may want to invest in a paid app. Those who need extremely fast rendering or capable handling of larger documents should look to RepliGo Reader, while those who value a more streamlined interface should find the cheaper ezPDF Reader very satisfactory. Both can be bought from the Android Market on a trial basis, and returned within 15 minutes for no charge.