When comparing Now for Reddit vs Reddit: The Official App, the Slant community recommends Now for Reddit for most people. In the question“What is the best Reddit app for Android?” Now for Reddit is ranked 10th while Reddit: The Official App is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Now for Reddit is:
With the card-based UI, the app fits in very well design wise with the Material Design of the OS. Everything is intuitive to use being that the interface is familiar and follows Google's design guidelines.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Clean slick interface
With the card-based UI, the app fits in very well design wise with the Material Design of the OS. Everything is intuitive to use being that the interface is familiar and follows Google's design guidelines.
Pro Translucent nav bar for Android 4.4+
Now for Reddit utilizes the transparent nav bar implemented in Android 4.4+, making for a cleaner looking interface.
Pro Nicely designed launcher icon
The design of the icon for Now for Reddit is clean, simple and fits well with material design.
Pro Configurable card sizes
Now for Reddit is one of the few Reddit clients that come with the ability to change how much content can be viewed on the screen. You'd also be hard pressed to find another Reddit client that can show you full-size images (via full-size cards) without you having even tapped on the image.
Keep in mind that the configurable card sizes might also have an impact on battery consumption, ranging from tiny cards (most battery efficient) to full size cards (most battery/data hungry).
Pro UI for phones and tablets
The design of the app lends itself well to phones and tablets alike no matter the orientation that the device is being held in. Not having to switch apps depending on the users device is a nice feature.
Pro Great performance/less jank
Using Android's profile GPU rendering tool it can be clearly shown how the Now for Reddit is generally more responsive than quite a few of the other popular reddit clients. For people obsessive about the 60 FPS mark, it would be hard to find a near 60 FPS experience as good as Now for Reddit.
Pro Easy navigation of subreddits
Pro The official app
This app is the official Reddit app made by Reddit, which has the potential for not only better support over a third party app dev, but the implementation of features not found in the public API.
Cons
Con Can be CPU and/or data intensive
Reddit Now tends to use a lot of data as well as runs the CPU pretty hard, which in turn drains the battery fast.
Con Hard to navigate when you subscribe to many subreddits
Con Delayed messages
Most Reddit clients refresh your inbox upon opening the app, notifying you instantly about any messages that you have. Now for Reddit on the other hand may not alert you of any messages even if you're using the app. The delay is generally short, but sometimes can take up to a couple of hours with no noticeable pattern. As a workaround, it's possible to manually refresh, but this might be a deal-breaker for some.
Con Has to reload sometimes and will always reload and forget your place (goes back to frontpage) if you reopen the app from its launcher icon
Con Ads
No way to get rid of ads at all, unlike most other apps.
Con Annoying irrelevant notifications
Con Does not open native apps
When clicking on links in the Official Reddit app (such as a Youtube link), the Youtube app will not open, but instead the Chrome browser does. This happens with a wide array of links found in the Official Reddit app as they all lead to an outside browser instead of opening within the app or opening in the appropriate app.
Con Can't customize the view of posts
For example no support for multi column view or customization for the card view