Google Play / game_card / SOLITAIRE - CLASSIC CARD GAMES
REVIEW
MobilityWare's Solitaire is the Klondike default on Android, ads and all.
The same Solitaire app that came pre-installed on millions of Android devices, ported faithfully and monetised aggressively. Free works; the ad load is what you're really paying for.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 11, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
Solitaire - Classic Card Games
MOBILITYWARE
OUR SCORE
7.3
GOOGLE PLAY
★ 4.6
PRICE
Free
In-app purchases
Solitaire is the screensaver of casual gaming — the app you open in a doctor’s waiting room, on a coffee break, in bed at 11:47pm when sleep isn’t coming. MobilityWare has been making the Android version since 2008, which makes it one of the oldest continuously-shipped apps on Google Play. The Klondike rules haven’t changed since the 17th century; what’s changed is everything around them.
The current version is, in the literal sense, fine. The cards animate cleanly, the daily challenge calendar gives the app a reason to live in your home screen, and the win-rate stats provide the small dopamine hit that keeps a Klondike player coming back. The two-hundred-million-plus install count on the Play Store is not an accident — this is the app that ships on a meaningful fraction of Android devices via OEM partnerships, and the one most users default to when they search “solitaire” on Google Play.
What’s harder to ignore is the monetisation. A free game of solitaire in 2026 means watching a 30-second car insurance ad, then a 15-second mobile RPG ad, then sometimes a third interstitial before the cards deal. The remove-ads purchase is the right call if you play more than twice a week; the Premium subscription, at $3–5 a month, asks you to pay rent on a card game in perpetuity. The product is solid. The pricing model is the part the review has to land on, because it’s the part you’ll actually feel.
Solitaire is a 600-year-old game running on a 15-year-old business model — and MobilityWare has tuned both within an inch of their lives.
FEATURES
MobilityWare's Solitaire ships the expected Klondike rules with a choice of Draw 1 and Draw 3, winning deals or random deals, vegas scoring or standard scoring, and an unlimited undo toggle. Daily Challenges have run continuously since 2014 — a new deal each day with a calendar of crowns for streaks and monthly completion. Themed events run alongside, swapping the table felt and card backs for seasonal art.
The card art is the recognisable MobilityWare deck most Android users have seen at some point — high-contrast pips, large numerals, a thick border that survives the small-screen draw. Statistics tracking covers win rate, best time, longest streak, and average moves. Hint highlights legal moves; auto-complete finishes obvious endgames in one tap.
Free with banner and interstitial ads, plus an optional remove-ads purchase and a "Premium" subscription that unlocks themes, statistics history, and an ad-free table. Account-bound progress sync through Google Play Games.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The game itself is honest. Animations are smooth on a five-year-old phone, undo works without penalty in the default scoring mode, and the daily challenge calendar is the single best reason most users open the app every day. The Draw 1 / Draw 3 toggle is in the right place; the auto-complete trigger fires exactly when you'd want it to.
Tap targets are sized for thumbs, not styluses — the card hitboxes extend past the visible card so you don't fumble drags on a 6-inch phone in one hand. Drag-to-foundation works; double-tap-to-foundation also works. The two interaction models coexist without conflict, which sounds trivial until you've used a competing solitaire app that forces one or the other.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The ad load is the structural complaint. Interstitials fire between deals at a frequency that's tuned for ad revenue rather than play experience. A user who plays five quick games in a sitting will see four or five video ads, several of them unskippable for 5–30 seconds. The remove-ads purchase fixes this for around $5; the Premium subscription is harder to justify at $3–5 a month for what is, fundamentally, a card game your grandparents played on paper.
The "Premium" tier is also where statistics history past the current month lives — gating basic record-keeping behind a subscription is the kind of decision that erodes goodwill. Solitaire by Brainium and Microsoft Solitaire Collection both offer cleaner free experiences with less aggressive monetisation, though Brainium has its own ad pattern and Microsoft's app requires a Microsoft account.
CONCLUSION
Install MobilityWare's Solitaire if you want the Klondike app most Android users already recognise and you're willing to either tolerate ads or pay the one-time removal fee. Skip the Premium subscription unless themes genuinely matter to you. For a cleaner free experience, try Solitaire by Brainium; for the deepest variant library, try Solitaire Collection by Tesseract. But for daily Klondike with a 15-year track record, this is the one most people will end up back on.