Free photo manager for Android
Smart Gallery is a free photo manager utility for Android devices. The app was developed by Smart Browser, Photo Gallery, QR Scanner, Coloring. At first glance, Smart Gallery serves no immediate purpose that your stock Android device cannot fulfil with its built-in gallery app or the Google Photos app.
If you’re looking for an alternative to this virtually pointless download, you can try Google Photos. While Google Photos comes standard on many Android devices, users of Android devices that aren’t powered by Google may need to download the app. Google Photos has numerous features that aren’t available on Smart Gallery, such as the ability to sync photos and videos to your Google account and back them up periodically to keep them safe.
We’ll preface this with a reminder that the gallery management features contained within Smart Gallery are no different to those contained within your built-in gallery app and Google Photos. Nonetheless, Smart Gallery has all the features that you’d expect from a basic, no-frills gallery manager. This means you can edit photos with various filters and cropping options, as well as store photos in dedicated folders or albums.
Photo management
HD Gallery
Smart Gallery claims to be an ‘HD gallery’ that lets you view your various photos and videos in HD quality. However, there is an issue with the claim. While it is indeed possible for an app like this to support the viewing of and interaction with HD quality media, there is no way to view media not captured in HD in an HD format.
Viewing media in HD is determined by your camera having the capability to capture media in HD in the first place. That said, there are numerous gallery apps that automatically convert your media into lower resolutions, so we can assume, at the very least, that Smart Gallery doesn’t do that.
Folders
This is another aspect of Smart Gallery that the developer seems to highlight as a unique feature in the grander scheme of the genre. However, it is not. While you cannot use sub-folders in your built-in gallery app, depending on your operating system, Google Photos is directly connected to your Google Drive. Folders and sub-folders are an inherent part of Google Drive’s organisational scheme. Moreover, Smart Gallery is rife with complaints about the sub-folder system not functioning the way it should.
Why bother
Honestly, if you’re looking for a way to manage your gallery with premium tools at no cost whatsoever, opt for Google Photos. You can’t go wrong with Google Photos.
This is especially true if you use Google Drive in conjunction with the former’s superior media management capabilities.
