Review: Pkt Auctions eBay (Android)

There’s an excellent, official, eBay client for iPhone and iPod touch. Android owners can’t go down the official route yet but there is the option of Bonfire Media’s Pkt Auctions eBay.

Optimised for Android use – although only for US, UK or German eBay – this is a version of Bonfire’s award-winning mobile client.

Obviously the core of the package is how it hooks into eBay. You can log in with your username and password and track the items you’re Watching, Buying and Selling. But even if you don’t have an eBay account, or don’t want to input your details, you can still search for items.

This doesn’t provide the full flexibility of eBay on the web but can you refine your search using basic categories and auction types. Item descriptions and photos can also be viewed. Neatly, descriptions are offered in simple text or the full html, with simple text being the default option: much better for a small screen. You can select items to Watch, and placing bids works seamlessly.

There are a couple of other cool touches too. You can view Completed sales to get a completed listing of items that have previously sold, while this information is also displayed in a Price Check tab, which provides you with maximum, average and minimum completion prices. Very useful. The portrait and landscape screen modes are both supported.

Stranger options however include a live chat forum with other Pkt Auctions users (frankly this is useless), a barcode scanner by which you scan any object’s barcode using the G1’s camera and it searches eBay for such products (surprisingly, this does work well), and deals section (we assume this is somehow sponsored). Finally, you can set up bidding and watching alerts.

So for most of the things you’d want to do with eBay on the move, Pkt Auctions eBay performs well. It’s certainly not as slick as eBay’s iPhone app, either in its user interface or extra hooks such as linking into messages, saved searches or listing the number of watchers for your items. However the Price Check information is a useful extra, and its general solid performance means we’re happy to recommended Pkt Auctions eBay – at least until an official eBay app arrives.

App: Pkt Auctions eBay
Developer: Bonfire Media
Publisher: Bonfire Media
Price: free
Version reviewed: 1.4
Size: 635
Score: 4/5

More screens after the break

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