There's a reason Flipboard remains PCMag's favorite multiplatform newsreader: It does a wonderful job of aggregating articles, video, and social media into an accessible, but feature-rich, personalized digital magazine. Flipboard's recently updated Android app, which boasts a beautiful and user-friendly redesign, remains the de facto Android news-reading app—mainly because much of the competition, such as The Daily and Zite, have bitten the dust. Regardless, the free Flipboard is a near-flawless app that news junkies should not do without. I tested Flipboard for Android, and there is also an iPhone app, and you can use the service via a Web browser, too, with similar results in all cases.

Laying the Foundation

Flipboard's sign-up process is simple, as the app lets you create an account using an email address or your Google, Facebook, or Twitter credentials. After you log in, Flipboard urges you to select topics of interests from dozens of categories, including Business, Celebrity News, and Science.

Tapping a category—say, Politics—reveals subcategories, such as #Donald Trump and #Political Satire. You highlight the categories and subcategories that interest you and then tap the Save icon to lock in your selections as Smart Magazines. You can also key specific terms into Flipboard's search box to create new categories, though I didn't finding anything for "Supreme Clothing."

On the other hand, typing in "Fashion" and selecting the "Street Fashion" and "Fashion Week" subcategories produced a Smart Magazine that I promptly added to my home screen.

Navigating the Waters

Smart Magazines are neatly arranged, vertically aligned panels that bundle sources, other users, and hashtags, so you'll receive a solid mix of information feeds. They aren't static, either; Smart Magazine are constantly evolving, and specific to your reading habits. My fashion-based Smart Magazine pulled in informative, image-heavy articles from Complex, Hypebeast, Vogue, and other style outlets. The pieces were enjoyable, and inspired me to add new items to my wardrobe.

Swiping up on a Smart Magazine lets you browse headlines, while tapping a story opens the article. Flipboard displays most articles as clean, minimalist pieces with black text on a white background and a handful of images. The result is stories that were extremely easy to read on the Google Nexus 6P ($99.00 at Amazon) I used for testing. Smart Magazines update several times during the day, as their sources publish content. And hearting articles provides Flipboard the information that it uses to tailor your future reading experiences.

Smart Magazines are easily deleted if you grow tired of them, but you can't remove the other Flipboard home screen collection: Cover Stories. It's the central hub in which all of your selected interests live. Cover Stories is a fine tool for taking a quick glance at what's trending in your topics of choice, as opposed to Smart Magazine's deeper dives.

Overall, Flipboard's reading experience is superior to that of Google Play Newsstand, which has a somewhat cluttered interface. The few Flipboard ads that I stumbled across took the form of either small banners or attractive, full-screen images, so they weren't jarring to the eye.

#Content

Many respected outlets, such as Business Insider, The New York Times, and Vogue, supply Flipboard with content. Unfortunately, The Washington Post and a small number of other publishers require you to log in or click through to their sites to read the full articles after you read a certain number of their articles, which is a bit annoying. Still, such occurrences were relatively uncommon in my testing.

After you page through a few articles, Flipboard presents you with a page suggesting some related topics. For example, Flipboard nudged me toward Relationships, Love, Emotions, and Gender after I read some articles in the Dating section. Flipboard's suggestions are excellent, making them fine ways to discover new content and even whole new areas of interest. That said, I prefer Google Play Newsstand's method of displaying related content; the links appear at the bottom of each article page. This makes discovery continuous and accessible when you want it, not just when the app's algorithms decide to present it to you, as in Flipboard.

If you want to read articles from select news outlets, such as The Daily News or Forbes, you can opt to follow just those publications, too. Flipboard makes newsreading a simple affair. Flipboard's navigation is also incredibly smooth; I didn't encounter a single hiccup in my time testing the app.

You can, of course, share articles via email, social media, and other platforms. If you add your Facebook or Twitter accounts to Flipboard, the app transforms links posted in those social media feeds into slick-looking articles. Thankfully, you can also save articles for offline reading, which is a great feature for people who anticipate being in areas that lack wireless signals.

The Daily Edition

Flipboard also has a cool curated newsmagazine for people who want a quick update on hot stories: The Daily Edition. A new version is released each day at 7 a.m. local time, but, should breaking news occur, stories are added as needed. In addition to news, there's some levity in the form of a daily song or a "parting GIF" that recalls The Daily Show's "Moment of Zen."

I like Daily Edition a lot, as it gives me a more insightful look at a particular topic. One of Flipboard's drawbacks is that for any given topic, you might see several similar news stories as outlets scramble to cover big, trending stories. The Daily Edition doesn't have that problem, because of its curated nature.

The Final Flip

Flipboard for Android is a superb alternative to using standalone RSS feed readers, browsing individual sites, and following Facebook and Twitter feeds. Some articles require you to log in or click through to their main sites, but Flipboard is an excellent Android news-reading app that tops Google Play Newsstand and is worthy of a PCMag Editors' Choice award.

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