App Review: PriceGrabber for Android

Finding the best price in town using your Android phone is an easy task given the bevy of available shopping applications, from the most popular Barcode Scanner app to the original ShopSavvy. Â Now we have a new program from my favorite online tool for the priceÂ conscious, PriceGrabber.com. Â The PriceGrabber application has been available for a while now on the iPhone and iPad, but they recently released an Android version that is available now and is free to download.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with PriceGrabber, it is a website that allows you to easily find the lowest prices for millions of products from thousands of online merchants. With PriceGrabber for Android, you have the same power as the PriceGrabber website, only now it’s in your pocket.

Here’s what PriceGrabber says on their site:

At PriceGrabber.com, savvy shoppers can instantly find and compare millions of unique products and services contained in 25 channels, such as Clothing, Babies & Kids, Books & Magazines, Cell Phones, Plans & Accessories, Computers, TV’s, Furniture and Cameras. The website also offers shoppers the ability to view and compare over thousands of merchants and sellers and their respective pricing information for products and services, thereby enabling users to ultimately find the right product from the right merchant at the best price. The Company connects its online shoppers to merchants and sellers of all sizes and scope, from large traditional merchants, such as Best Buy, Office Depot and Walmart, to smaller local merchants and individuals through PriceGrabber Storefronts

Launching the application takes you immediately to a list of cool stuff just ready to tempt you into your next purchase.Â Although my initial list had an iPhone….LOL….I don’t think it has filters… j/k.Â A simple tap on an item takes you into a more detailed view of the product and offers easy access to the available merchants and reviews.

From here you can start your search by typing the name of whatever you are looking for into the search box, or you can go into the UPC option and type in a UPC code or scan a barcode using your camera and the built- in scanning function.

Using the camera is just like any other barcode scanning application, simply point your phone’s camera at any barcode and the application does the rest. Â When your search is completed, you get a selection of products based on your search criteria. This list can be huge or small depending on how much detail you provided with your search. Â A simple search for a Samsung LCD TV returned 158 results. Â Clicking on one of the returned results brings you to the product details screen with a list of the best prices the application could find.

Various setting allow you to customize your experience by letting you to use your location to find the lowest prices locally, as well as allowing you to specify if you want to use US or UK UPC styles and the type of UPC alerts you want.

Another coolÂ featureÂ of the PriceGrabber application is the Random Gift function. Â Drag your finger down the plunger, just like a Vegas slot machine and PriceGrabber goes out a grabs a gift idea for you. Â For some reason the application chose a Frozen Drink Maker for me… hmmmmm, Margaritas! 🙂

Instead of searching, you can also browse through a whole list of categories digging further and further until you reach the area you want.Â It’s a nice feature if you just want to browse a particular category of product.Â The funny thing is, the application tried to sell me an iPhone once more as I browsed down to the cell phone category.

Overall the application is very easy to use and gives you instant access to the vast library of products and prices indexed in the PriceGrabber system. You just have to ignore their obvious penchant for the iPhone…

Head over to the Android Market and download the PriceGrabber app for yourself. You can do a quick search for PriceGrabber on the market, or Click or Scan the QRCode below: