Re: Hangouts vs Stock Messenger
Textra (?) is my choice. I have personal reasons for not using Hangouts. But the stock messenger app has 1 really annoying feature that I just can't get past. When you set notifications to repeat every 2 minutes, you must actually exit what you are doing and go into the app and read the message. You can swipe it away from the notification drop down, but it will continue to beep every 2 minutes.
At least with textra when you click on the notification you get a pop up with an option to reply, while you remain in your app that you are using. If you swipe away from the notification, it will stop reminding you that you got a new message. Seems simple, but on this Multi-tasking power house, the need to exit an app and load messenger, then exit messenger and re-load your app is just too much... especially if the app you are exiting isn't multi window compatible.