As our Android phones’ screens get larger and tablets become more mainstream, watching videos — be it short ones or longer movies — becomes a prevalent use case scenario. That’s why it’s essential to find a great video player app that can simplify the process for you and offer some cool features along the way.

MX Player

Ask any Android enthusiast about the video player app he recommends, and you will most likely get MX Player 8 times out of 10. That’s because MX has made a name for itself on the platform for several years as the video player that can decode and play almost anything you throw at it.

MX will handle many different formats thanks to hardware (multi-core with acceleration) and software decoding. It also packs intuitive gesture controls: swipe vertically on the left of the screen for brightness control, on the right for volume. Swipe horizontally and you can seek forward or back in the video, and pinch to zoom to focus on a certain part or to fit the video to your screen. The more you use MX, the more these gestures become second nature to you, and you will find yourself inadvertently using them in other video apps, like YouTube for example.

MX Player’s gestures are intuitive and very efficient

Download: MX Player

DicePlayer

DicePlayer is a slightly more modern MX-like video player. It handles gestures in the same way, and can hardware decode many video formats. However, where DicePlayer wins is with its pop-up player that floats the video window on top of other applications, its network playback support (including FTP and WebDAV), and its most recent addition for Android L support — whereas MX has only added it in a test build.

Dice Player is reminiscent of MX with a slightly more modern interface

Download: DicePlayer

VLC beta

Although still in beta, VLC is quite an accomplished video player for Android. It supports different codecs and formats, has gestures for volume and brightness control, and both a white and black theme for the interface. VLC’s addition comes in the form of audio playback, with the app able to manage your audio, just like it does your video, and with a few bonus features to boot (widget, headset audio control).

VLC’s interface is modern and has a black theme too

Download: VLC for Android Beta

Plex

Plex is a streaming video player for Android. Combined with the Plex Media Server (installed on another computer, on the same network or not), it can access your entire video library and play it. Plex provides a beautiful way to browse your video collection, by downloading details for all movies and TV series, it also doesn’t care about the video format because if the Media Server can handle it, then it can handle it as well.

Plex also packs many awesome features, including Chromecast support to watch your videos on the TV, offline viewing (only with the premium PlexPass membership), and online video sources like YouTube, TED, Vimeo, and more.

Plex’s library details are one of its coolest features

Download: Plex for Android

BubbleUPnP

BubbleUPnP is one of the most versatile video players on this list, offering media playback from and to as many sources as possible. It can handle images, videos, and music, from your local storage or a network location (Dropbox, Drive, UPnP/DLNA servers, and more), and to your device’s screen or other ones around you (UPnP/DLNA renderers, Chromecast, gaming consoles, and more).

And BubbleUPnP doesn’t stop there. It also has playlist and queue functionalities, along with a sleep timer, and its own Server app which can decode most video formats on the fly when installed on a computer.

BubbleUPnP can handle different media types from various sources

Download: Bubble UPnP (Chromecast/DLNA)

What is your favorite video player on Android? Is it among this selection or did we miss it? Let us know in the comments below.