Review: Snaptell for Google Android

Snaptell

With Snaptell, you can take a picture of the barcode on any product, and look up information about it via your Android phone.

Design (3 out of 5)

I thought this app was very simple and easy to use. When you first open up Snaptell, you get three options: scan a barcode, upload a picture from your photo album, or take a picture with the app.

When you select ‘scan a barcode’, Snaptell enables the camera on your phone. On the screen, you’ll see a opaque white rectangle with a red bar running horizaintally through the middle. What you have to do is find the barcode on the produt you wish to look up, position the barcode in the designated area, and take the picture. When you have positioned the barcide in the right area, the red bar wil tunr green.

Once you’ve correctly taken a picture of the barcode, Snaptell will take a few minutes to search the web for this product. Snaptell will come back to you and display the lowest and highest prices, customer reviews, and locations where it is sold.

The ’take a picture with the app’ option works like the barcode option, although I would recommend scanning the barcode if you are able to. Taking the picture with the app, then having Snaptell search the web for the product, takes a while, and often gives you results or a similar looking product.

Convenience (5 out of 5)

If you love shopping (bargain-hunting in particular), Snaptell is a must-have app. With it, you can go to any store and see if you’re getting the best deal for any item. I loved how fast Snaptell was, and unlike some other barcode-scanning applications, Snaptell read the barcode quickly and accurately. Although, as I said before, if you’re going to use this while you’re out and about, you’d be better off if you scanned the barcodes of the product, instead of taking pictures of them.

Another thing that I liked about Snaptell, and that I thought was amazingly convenient, was that you can pull images rom your photo library and search for them in Snaptell, too. This is great, because if you’re in a 3G dead-zone, and you really like a certain item, you can snap a picture of it and save it for later (you can also use Snaptell to see where that girl got her fabulous handbag from).

The Bottom Line

Snaptell is an amazing, easy-to-use application that may be one of the most helpful Google Android Apps I’ve seen yet. Although it can be a little slow sometimes, the results are usually pretty accurate, and the user interface is easy to use and understand.