More Android Video Reviews (Barcode Scanners, Skype Client, Drawing)

Since most of you don’t have an Android G1 phone, we are featuring some video reviews from the AppVee crew to show you what you are missing (or not, depending on your point of view). You can watch the first ten video reviews in an earlier post. Below are five more, two of which are on my top ten (ShopSavvy and iSkoot for Skype).

One of the most potentially useful set of apps on Android turn the phone into a barcode scanner and let you compare prices on the go. In fact, there are two apps that do this, ShopSavvy and CompareEverywhere. They are currently the No. 2 and No. 4 apps on the Android Market, respectively. Both look through the phone’s camera lens to scan a product’s barcode and look it up in a database to retrieve price comparisons from both the Web and local stores.

I tried both with half a dozen packaged foods in my pantry (a can of tomato sauce, a jar of salsa, chicken stock, Nutella, some English muffins, a jar of baby food). This is far from a scientific sample, but CompareEverywhere did a much better job identifying the products. It identified 4 out of 6, whereas Shop Savvy was only able to identify two. CompareEverywhere, however, sometimes got stuck and was not able to capture the barcode, especially for products where the label was not completely flat. I found ShopSavvy to sometimes be to quick on the trigger tryin to capture the barcode beoire it was really in focus.

Both services obviously need to improve their underlying product databases, but they are still worth downloading and will no doubt improve over time. Here are AppVee’s reviews of each:

CompareEverywhere

ShopSavvy

iSkoot for Skype is a mobile Skype client that turns your Android into a Skype phone. It lets you make Internet phone calls over Skype and IM your Skype contacts. Skype calls go over the data network (WiFi or 3G, whichever is available). It is a must-download for anyone who uses Skype frequently.

iSkoot For Skype

Bluebrush is a drawing app that lets you make doodles on your Android. The screen is too small to make anything other than squiggles, in my experience, but the app includes a fun social component that lets you draw with others using the Bluebrush on their Android phones.

Bluebrush

For people who want to make their own shortcuts to their favorite apps, Any Cut goes beyond the customization options that come with the phone itself.

Any Cut