Frucall, a mobile price comparison service, has been in beta since October 2006 and is launching its (non-beta) Version 2 today.
Frucall Version 2 includes new access options: Frucall mWeb, search price using barcode on your mobile browser and, Frucall Text, a new 2-way SMS search capability.
We love price comparison services that are available on mobile phones that let us check-out gadgets in the store and search for the best price online.
I tested Frucall price search via mobile browser ( www.Frucall.com/m) using Product barcode, the SMS service and the regular search with voice (call 1-888-Dofrucall).I tested it against the competition. In my opinion, Frucall is the best regarding the quality of results, the speed of delivery and the whole package of features they are now offering.
Read the full article for more details on the review.
I did the test with the Camera Flash Canon Speedlite 430EX, barcode number: 013803057003.Several other price comparison services available on mobile browsers, like Price Grabber mobile, smarter.com or shopping.com, do not accept barcode numbers (even the product description did not work with the latter!). Price Grabber does not offer a voice service.
Smarter.com is supposed to work with the product part code but I could not figure out where to find this code on my 430EX package. TicTap is supposed to work using barcode, but it returned a wrong product, and the UI is not that good either. I could not get a result via SMS using TicTap.
I then tried others: Mobsaver (SMS-only) did not provide satisfying results, Ringfo works via voice only and 4Info gives fast and good results, but needs the product name and works only via SMS. Google SMS price comparison using the barcode returned higher prices.
Frucall delivered good price results from Amazon and Yahoo, in the range of Price Grabber, Shopping.com, and 4Info.net. With SMS I got quite quickly the first 3 lowest price results, I got a bit more on the mobile browser and I had the complete list (13 results) when I got back to my product bookmark page in Frucall’s desktop website.
In addition, Frucall has other cool features: store the search history, access product rating and reviews, allows the user to send a good product price to friends via the group messaging feature etc…You can use it without registering, but you can access more features with the free registration.
If you know a good mobile price search that I missed, please post a comment.
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About the author: Eliane Fiolet is the co-founder and editor of Ubergizmo.com where she writes about smart devices, web applications, design and usability. In her parallel life, she owns a Corporate ID design business that helps companies create great brands. Prior to opening her own agency, Eliane worked for a top design firm, Minale Tattersfield Design Strategy, where she created identities for Fortune 500 companies. She also worked in the video game industry as a designer for an award-winning adventure game. Eliane holds a master degree in visual communication and design from the “Art Décoratifs” college and she majored in mathematics and physics in high school. Follow the author on Facebook, Twitter