CompareEverywhere review

Clare Hopping

We review CompareEverywhere, a barcode recognition and price comparison app for Google Android

Published on May 11, 2009

There are quite a few price comparison engines out there across the whole spectrum of platforms and CompareEverywhere is on top of the pile, with an easy to use interface, simple operation and enough features to make you scrap the internet on your PC to find a bargain.

Although it's a US-based service, so pretty useless to citizens of any other country, you'll still find online retailers on the app that deliver to other areas of the world.

When you first access the application, you are asked to accept the terms and conditions, and then given a tutorial which isn't really needed if you know how to use your mobile camera.

To find products and prices, you simply have to scan the barcode on a product by pointing your phone camera at it and ensuring the horizontal red line matches up with the barcode. After a satisfying beep, it'll search the web for the EAN (European Article Number). The product description and photo are shown if it's on the system and when requested, it searches on the web for retailers selling the product, both online and offline.

If the shops are on the high street near where you are (this obviously applies to the US rather than the UK), a map will pinpoint where you can buy the product.

If the application can't find the product based on the barcode, it'll ask you to give a description that is then supplied to the developer's database. We're guessing these will be added onto the next version of CompareEverywhere.

You can also add shopping lists and wish lists - just press menu and it'll ask if you want to build a list. Then scan and the products will be added. If you want to remove them from the lists menu, you simply swipe across to cross them out and delete them by selecting delete in the menu.

In addition to the barcode reader, you can also search for products by entering a search term and CompareEverywhere will search its database to find matching products, although we found that quite often it couldn't find the search terms.

The are obvious disadvantages of CompareEverywhere are that the prices only correspond with US prices, many UK-centric products aren't displayed and only US retailers will be displayed if you're thinking about buying the product.

However, if you travel to the US a lot or are planning a holiday away, CompareEverywhere is a handy app loaded on your Google Android device.