Quick Office is a popular office suite available to both Android and iPhone users via both the Google Play store and iOS.  With an intuitive and clean design it enables users to open and edit presentations, spreadsheets and Word documents from Microsoft Office on your mobile device.  Quick Office is also fully integrated with Google Drive meaning documents can be shared effortlessly across multiple devices.  Although previously, the app was listed with a price tag of $15, it is now available for free.

Free to All Users

Google Vice President, Alan Warren, announced the news via a blog post in September in which he said “Everyone likes free stuff, which is why starting today we’re making Quick Office available for free, for everyone”.  He clearly knows what he is talking about as both Apple and Android users have shown a strong preference for free apps in the past.

The Good

With Quick Office now being free to all business users we thought we should give it a going over and give you our honest review.  So first off, let’s look at the good (tested on an Android device):

• It is easy to create and edit Excel, Word and PowerPoint files – this is of particular note as whilst there are a few apps that work with Excel and Word documents, not many can handle PowerPoint files as flawlessly as Quick Office.
• It is possible to view PDF files although it is not, at present, possible to create them.
• It is simple to use and setting the app up is super easy – just download it to your device, fire it up and choose the Google account you want to set it up with.
• The file manager is clean and intuitive and you can easily access files stored both locally and on Google Drive.
• It’s FREE!

The Bad

Unfortunately most apps have a few things that could be improved.  Some of the current bad points for Quick Office are:

• It only supports Google Drive so those who use other cloud programs will have to either switch to Google Drive or use a different app.
• It has limited file format support and has trouble with some of the more advanced documents such as advanced charts and text wraps.
• It has limited editing features.

The Verdict

Whilst Quick Office may have some limited features we think all users need to be aware that it is an App for a mobile device and therefore is not expected to be as perfect as the full Microsoft Office suite (in fact, if it were, Microsoft would likely have some strong competition on their hands).  As most users will use Quick Office to access Word and Excel files en route, we feel that the app is more than satisfactory and does its job well.  Most users will open up the full files they require once at a computer.

With the app being completely free, there is no reason not to download it and give it a try for yourself.  Let us know what you thought in the comments below.