Google Currents App Review - news reader better than Pulse?

I discovered the Google Currents news reader application for Android while browsing the Technology area of another news reader app, Pulse.

Because I was using Pulse, it's obvious that I like it. It's a really easy to navigate interface that categorizes your personal news and information preferences. Sometimes I'm in the mood for technology, other times I'm in the mood for stupid entertainment gossip. Pulse provides this very nicely. Read more about Pulse here.

So, I was thrilled to see that I may now have a cool alternative. And one created by Google to boot.

The good news is: it's not bad. The bad news is: it's not great.

For me, the attraction of Pulse is that there are a lot of options on the screen, and you can scroll through a number of articles, from a variety of publications conveniently from each screen.

On Google Currents, you choose from the Library listing, which has a scrolling list of the individual publications that you added to your personalized preferences; or you click on Trending which provides all of the hot stories of the moment.

So, let's say you click on a story about Gabby Gifford leading the pledge of allegiance, it still takes another couple of screens to get to the story you want. Then, once at the story you selected, you can continue to swipe sideways (a feature I like much better scrolling up) to continue reading, and if you swipe again it will take you to another article about the same subject. I like this feature when I'm in the mood to read a lot about a particular story, or if you want to get more than one perspective on a particular topic.

Google Currents ends each article with a few Suggested Articles, another feature that fits nicely in my life when I'm in the mood to explore the article's subject more.

Both applications load the articles in their own "reader" format which is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than an RSS feed. And both apps also offer you the ability to jump over to the original article in your preferred Android browser. One thing that seemed a bit odd to me was that if you load the Original Article (into the Currents interface, not on the web), you now need to scroll down, as opposed to the page-turning scrolling on the original article.

My recommendation: download both apps and decide for yourself. If you're a news and info junkie you'll probably be like me and use each one depending on your mood and appetite.