Is esteemapp the best steem android client? or there are others better than it? (Part 3)

Repositories

https://github.com/hapramp/1Rramp-Android
https://github.com/esteemapp/esteem

Introduction

In my previous post on this series, I reviewed and compared the features of Partiko with that of Esteemapp. I expressed my satisfaction and dissatisfactions about Partiko. My dissatisfaction with the app was more than what I was satisfied with. This raised some trivial arguments and confrontations from some end-users. So in this post, I'll start with a disclaimer to clarify some certain issues. Furthermore, this post will be the last post on this series. I'll be reviewing the distinct features of 1ramp and compare it with that of esteemapp. This means that I'll be excluding partiko from this post since it is not open source and isn't considered for Utopian contributions. The original goal of this series was to find out if Esteemapp is still relevant and can compete in the midst of modern steem android clients. To do this, I decided to do a review and comparison with other apps. Partiko and 1ramp to be precise.

Disclaimer: This contents of this post are my personal reviews based on my experience with the projects. This post is not in anyway sponsored to defame any of these projects. The reviews are my opinions and my opinions alone. You are liable for whatever course of action you take with regards to this post.

Post body

The steem blockchain is advancing each day and a lot of dApps are being developed. 1ramp is one of the many steem dApps or Android clients that was released this year. Although the app is still in its alpha stages, it has gained good reception.
1ramp formerly called Hapramp was officially launched 3 months ago. The app has a good number of attractive features and there are more features to be expected on the project. Like every other steem android client, 1ramp has the basic features you'll need on a steem platform.
But the focus of this post is the distinct features of 1ramp.

Features of 1ramp

Like I did in my previous posts, I'll be split the features of 1ramp into the user interface (UI) and functionalities.

User Interface (UI)

The user interface is one of the first things I check out in any app. If you are consistent with my blog posts, this shouldn't be a new news. I have seen a lot of apps adopt google's material design language. This design is also adopted by 1ramp, although, I'm not entirely certain. The patterns and transitions suggest that it is material design. I scoured the internet hoping I could find any information about the app's user interface. Unfortunately, I found no information.
The UI of 1ramp is really beautiful. It looked great and satisfying on my eyes. It uses my system font which I like a lot. But the font changes when the previewed post is opened. Maybe this is a bug and would be fixed later on. Furthermore, the icons on the app are great too. The app does not have night mode yet, but, it looked great. I honestly can't believe I'm saying this being a huge fan of night mode on apps. But, I will love to have night mode on the app anyway. Night mode on the app will be mindblowing.
In the UI department so far, 1ramp offers the best display in my opinion. The UI is unique and sleek. The esteemapp has good UI too but it is beaten hands down in a direct comparison with 1ramp. Esteemapp has night mode which gives it a sort of edge. But, that isn't a big deal for me as 1ramp looks great on day mode.

Functionalities

Aside from the basic features of a steem platform, 1ramp offers a handful of services.
They are;

Communities.

A community is a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. In the case of 1ramp, the community is virtual.
Communities is a very prominent feature of 1ramp. It is even part of the initial setup on the first launch. But it is also subject to change later on. The idea of having communities is an amazing one and it is unique. Before 1ramp, communities on the blockchain existed mostly offline. Meaning communities had other means of staying connected and most times they weren't united by common interests. I belong to a steem community on WhatsApp "STEEMBEES" to be precise. But, it is a community of different interests. 1ramp makes communities organized by splitting them into categories. There are 8 communities on 1ramp. They are;

• Art
• Dance
• Design
• Film
• Fashion
• Literature
• Photography
• Travel

The communities manage to cut across the interests of everybody on the planet. There could be more though. I'm a foodie so I'll like to see a food community where we can share and have access to various foods in the world. There should be a music community too. It's a little bit absurd to have a dance community without music. That being said, I'm satisfied with the communities that are currently available. I love art, fashion, literature, photography, and travel. Those are the communities I'm currently hooked on and so far, I'm pleased with the content I have been seeing. The developers of 1ramp can still do more in this aspect by adding more communities. Moreso, it'll be great to have like a chatroom where users in that community can interact. The interactions would be within the app.

Contests

Contests and competitions have been existing on the steem blockchain for a long time now. I've never created a contest or competition. I don't have plans to create one anytime soon. But this feature is a nice one to have. Contests are a way of helping newbies on the blockchain grow. It's also a way of discovering awesome talents on the blockchain. The inclusion of this feature on 1ramp is great. Although I've never tried, creating on contests should be a little tiring. The burdensome part is keeping tabs on participants, judging the entries and announcing the winner. All these are made really easy on 1ramp. Furthermore, aside from creating contests, finding them can also be a pain. Finding contests and participating are also made easy on 1ramp. There's a dedicated contests page on the app where all contests can be found. The only flaw I had with this feature is that it is for a selected few. The privileges of creating contests are not available to everyone. I understand the developers making this feature restricted to only notable contests creators. But it shouldn't be so in my opinion. I don't organize contests, but spontaneous moments can cause me to. It will be great if I could just do that immediately on 1ramp. Fortunately, this feature is for a selected few but it's not permanent. This means interested users can apply using this form. To learn more about 1ramp's contests feature read this blog post

Wallet

This feature shouldn't be listed as a distinct feature. But, I'm listing it because it has some unique components. These aren't found on other steem android clients.
On 1ramp, the wallet houses really useful tools such as;
Power up/Power down: Powering up and down is available on 1ramp. This isn't available on any other steem android client I'm aware of. The process is secure because it uses steemconnect authentication. The process is smooth although powering down doesn't work. It returned an error when I tried. This is a bug and should be fixed in no time.
Delegation: The delegation tool on 1ramp is the most useful part of the wallet for me. Delegating SP has always been a hard task for me unless I get a direct link. This was solved with the steemplus extension on steemit though. It's great to have this tool on 1ramp. More can be done to improve it though.
Transactions history: Any transaction is shown here. Great idea. I can keep track of all my transactions with the app. I can also visit posts of earned reward transactions.
Up-to-date market prices: 1ramp provides information about the prices of steem and SBD in the market. This is cool. It'll be cooler if I could view the price in my local currency too.

Credits.

1ramp provides information on Voting power(VP), Resource credits(RCs) and also vote value. Furthermore, it displays the number of activities the credits are enough for.

Content Rating

Content rating is another distinct feature of 1ramp. Users can now get their content rated. The rating star each represents an upvote percentage. 1 star is equal to 20 percent upvote. I don't see the need for this feature. But I've used it a few times. I read a post about some issues with the rating system. Maybe when the issues are fixed then I can see the actual value of the feature.

These are all the distinct features of 1ramp I could find. They are amazing and I had zero issues with any of them. Most of them need further development. But for a start, these are really great features. The best features of 1ramp for me are the User interface, communities, and the wallet. I found the features of great value to every steemian. It's amazing to see how an app that is not fully developed have such great features. 1ramp is still in its alpha stages and it has great potentials. I'm curious about how great it'll be when it gets to beta stages and then a stable version.

Summary.

In this post, I've been able to give my review of 1ramp's distinct features. The aim of this post was to find out if it is better than esteemapp. To do that comparison, I decided to review their distinct features. This post is focused on 1ramp's distinct features. You can read my review of the esteemapp here.
After reviewing both apps, I find doing a comparison difficult. Both apps are spectacular. Each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses.
In terms of UI, I initially loved that of esteemapp when I compared it with Partiko. But 1ramp's UI is the best in my opinion. The UI is clean and smooth. Transitions from one menu to another are faster on 1ramp too. The only edge esteemapp had was the availability of night mode which I love so much. But this didn't lower my love for 1ramp's UI.
Here is a table of each app's distinct features.

Esteemapp	1ramp
Security	Community
Bookmarks	Contests
Schedule	Wallet
Favourites	Credits
Exchange	Rating
Currency
Drafts

This table will raise some issues though. Security and drafts on esteemapp are different concepts entirely. It is important to read about those features in my review of esteemapp.
Judging from the table, esteemapp has more features than 1ramp. The question therefore is, which of these features have more value?

I find the security feature on esteemapp very valuable. 1ramp uses steemconnect security only for logging. Access to the app itself doesn't have any security measures. This poses a security risk in a way.

Community on 1ramp is valuable to me. I've experienced the might of community offline. This shouldn't be any different online. Community on 1ramp creates an avenue for socialization with folks of the same interest. It wouldn't be out of place to say that 1ramp is a social media. I'd love to see a chatroom implemented alongside the communities. Furthermore, more communities should be included. Overall this feature is of great value to me and the blockchain in general.

Wallet is a feature on 1ramp. Users can perform basic transactions with 1ramp. This is possible on esteemapp too. But with the inclusion of power up/down, delegations and transaction history, 1ramp does a better job. The delegation tool is the most useful component of the wallet feature though.

Bookmarks on esteemapp is an amazing feature. With bookmarks, I don't have to go through the stress of finding a post by an author. This is a stress killer. I find this feature valuable.

Contests might not be valuable so much to me because I don't look out for them. But I know how valuable it is to newbies. This is an amazing feature.

I'll stop here. Like I said earlier, comparing these two apps would be difficult. Both apps have great features that are of great value to end users.

Conclusively, in the end, the choice of which app is better depends on which features are more important to you. For me, I'd go with 1ramp. 1ramp is a really promising project. Only being in alpha stages, it has shown great potentials. My opinion might change later on though. I heard there's Esteem 2.0 coming soon. This might change a lot of things and maybe my decision too. Until then 1ramp becomes my favorite steem android client.
Oh, I forgot to add that I contributed to the 1ramp project in FAQs.

Thanks for reading!

Resources

https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@the1ramp/live-competition-pools-on-1ramp-coming-soon?sort=author_reputation
https://1ramp.io/index.html

Series Backlinks

Is esteemapp the best steem android client? or there are others better than it?

Is esteemapp the best steem android client? or there are others better than it? (Part 2)