MX Player

MX Player plays video and music stored on an Android device. It can switch on hardware acceleration through the HW+ decoder, supports multi-core decoding, and lets you change the picture size by pinching or by swiping across the screen.

Subtitles get special attention. The player understands many formats, including SRT, SSA and ASS with full styling, SAMI, MicroDVD, VobSub and WebVTT, and gestures let you step through lines, shift the text up or down and resize it. Extras include a private folder for hidden videos, a kids lock that stops a child from placing calls or opening other programs, and file transfer between devices over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

It suits people who watch films and series saved on their phone and want fine control over picture and captions. Playback needs access to the files on the device; file transfer asks for permissions covering the camera, nearby device discovery and system settings.