I baulked at the $25 price as much as anyone else would, so I used the free desktop app, and web app which works on mobile (ankiweb.net), for a month. After that, I was happy to pay $25 to support the developer and get the ability to edit cards on mobile and work offline.

The AnkiDroid app for Android is free, and is basically a reimplementation of Anki with compatible behaviors, storage formats and configuration. It's a complete, self-contained Anki implementation; it does not require anything on a desktop computer.

Sorry if I come off as pedantic, but what makes it look dodgy? Is it just the polish and alignment?

I use it daily and I just find it functional, but I’m also very used to it.