Google Slides

Review by eFreeware

The most distinctive thing about Google Slides is that the deck you build on your phone is the same deck your colleague is editing on a laptop at the same moment. This is a full presentation editor for Android, not a viewer that nudges you toward a desktop, and it comes from Google as part of the Workspace family. It has been on the Play Store since June 2014 and now sits past a billion installs with a 4.4 average from more than 703,000 ratings.

That combination of reach and age tells you something useful before you install anything: this is not a niche tool that might vanish, and the format is one that plenty of other people already use. If a colleague or classmate sends you a link to a deck, there is a good chance Slides is what they built it in.

The app suits people who need to touch a presentation while away from a computer: a student polishing a group project on the bus ride in, a salesperson updating pricing slides the night before a meeting, a manager who wants to rehearse from a tablet in a hotel room. It also suits anyone who already lives inside Google's ecosystem and wants their slides in the same place as the rest of their work.

What you can do without leaving your phone

The core of the app is a working editor. You can start a new presentation from scratch or open an existing one, add and rearrange slides, and format text and shapes. It opens, edits and saves PowerPoint files, which matters if your workplace or school still trades in that format. The developer also advertises smart suggestions that help you make slides look presentable without much fiddling.

Saving is handled for you. Everything is stored automatically as you type, so there is no save button to remember and no version of the deck lost because you closed the app too quickly. For anyone who has lost work to a crash on a lesser editor, that alone is a meaningful reason to keep Slides on the phone.

Offline work is supported. You can create and edit presentations without a connection. That is the feature that turns the app from a companion into something you can rely on during a flight or in a building with unreliable Wi-Fi.

Collaboration is the reason to pick it

Multiple people can work in the same presentation at the same time, and you share a deck the way you would share any other Google file. Comments can be added and answered from the app, so a reviewer can flag a chart and you can respond without leaving the presentation. For group projects and workplace decks, this is the part that separates Slides from a standalone editor.

The developer pitches deeper collaboration for Workspace subscribers: you control who can edit, who can only view, and who can leave comments, and you can bring in people outside your organization. Subscribers also get templates as a starting point, plus videos, images, drawings and smooth transitions to dress up a deck, and the ability to move between PCs, Macs, phones and tablets.

The practical effect is that a deck can move between devices and people without anyone exporting a file and emailing it around. If your team already shares documents this way, Slides slots into a habit you have rather than asking you to build a new one.

Presenting from the device in your hand

You can present straight from your phone or tablet, which is genuinely useful when you are traveling light or when the room's computer will not cooperate. The app also handles presenting into video calls, and scheduled meetings appear in the app automatically so you can join and share from there. That is a small convenience that saves fumbling with links at the start of a call.

If your presentation habit is mostly standing in front of a room, the phone screen is not going to replace a laptop for building complex slides. But for reviewing, tweaking and delivering a deck you already have, the app is designed to be enough on its own.

What it costs, and what that gets you

The app is free to download and use, with no ads and no in-app purchases. That is the whole of the monetization picture, and it is a straightforward one: install it and start working.

Google Workspace subscribers get extra capabilities: templates, richer media and transitions, finer control over sharing permissions, and cross-device work. Those are additions on top of a free app rather than a paywall in front of the basics. The core editing, collaboration, commenting, offline work and presenting all sit in the free tier.

For a productivity app that people open in short bursts, that absence of friction is worth more than it sounds.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is a desktop presentation suite. Those tend to offer deeper layout control and more elaborate animation tools, and they are built around a mouse and a large screen. Slides trades some of that depth for the ability to work from anywhere and to let several people touch the same file at once. Which matters more depends on whether your decks are solo, static and complex, or shared, changing and often edited on the move.

A second alternative is a dedicated mobile presentation app from another vendor. Those often live inside their own storage and sharing system, which is fine if everyone you work with uses the same one. Slides is strongest when the people around you are already in Google's ecosystem, because then sharing is a link rather than a file conversion.

A third option is simply to skip the phone and do everything on a computer. That remains the most comfortable way to build a deck from nothing, and Slides does not pretend otherwise. What it offers instead is the ability to keep a presentation current between the moments when you are at a desk, and to present from whatever device is in your hand when the meeting starts.

A dependable default for shared slide decks

After weighing what the app does against what it asks for, my recommendation is straightforward. Slides is a strong choice if your presentations are shared, edited by more than one person, or need to stay current while you move between devices. It is free, it carries no ads or purchases, it saves as you type, it works offline, it opens PowerPoint files, and it presents from the phone or tablet you already own.

The trade-offs are the ones you would expect from a mobile editor. Building an intricate deck from scratch on a small screen is slower than doing it on a computer, and the richest features sit behind a Workspace subscription rather than in the free app. Neither of those is a flaw in the design so much as the shape of the product.

If you are a student, a team member or anyone whose slides are a shared, living document, install it. If your presentations are solo, elaborate and built at a desk, the phone app is a companion rather than a replacement, and it is a good one to have on hand for the moments when you need it.

What's new

* Bug fixes and performance improvements