Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Vegas!

On a whim a friend and I decided to take a road trip down to Vegas. Bad idea! As we passed through Primm, Nevada we realized we should probably start thinking about where we would stay and being Addicted to Android like I am, I turned on my MyTouch and searched the Android Market for 'hotels'. I picked four of the applications that popped up and downloaded them so I could try them out. Below I'd like to briefly share with you my experience with these apps.

Hotel Booker

Description:

When you open up Hotel Booker you've got a few options for how to search for your hotel. You can choose 'Nearby' and leverage your devices GPS to find the closest options to you; you can choose 'City Search' to search for hotels in Las Vegas for instance; you can choose to search for a 'Specific Hotel'; you can choose to view a map or you can manage your favorites, reviews and reservations by selecting 'My Hotel Booker'

Like: The variety of ways to search for a hotel makes this a very flexible tool.

Dislike: Unfortunately this applications seems like it was developed with the European market in mind. I'm not sure if it was a fluke, or what, but my search for Hotels in Las Vegas didn't turn up any results regardless of how I searched. I'm not ready to pass judgement on this one quite yet, but it was a disappointment to say the least.

Hotels (Corellis)

Description: When you open up Hotels (by Corellis) if your GPS is turned off it will prompt you to turn it on. Once you do you'll see a map with your current location (and nearby hotels if there are any. At the top of the screen are four tabs labeled 'Search', 'Favorites' 'Your Info' and 'Help'. Pressing menu in either the search tab or the favorites tab will bring up a contextual menu with additional options.

Like: The my info tab allows you to fill in your vital info for quicker booking in the future. For me that feature alone makes this app worth considering.The help tab is also a feature that wins this apps some points because it means I can recommend this app to my mom without expecting calls about it every 15 minutes (that might be slightley exaggerated...every 20 minutes). You can also set a spending limit for the room so you don't spend a lot of time looking at places you can't afford.

Dislike: This app requires GPS to operate. What if I'm indoors? What if I'm booking for a city that I'm not in? Seems like a waste to drain my battery with GPS if its not really providing me any benefit.

Hotels (Blue Media Labs)

Description: Just like it's namesake when you open this app you'll be asked to turn on GPS. IF GPS cant find a signal then you're asked if you want to use the mobile network (less accurate location but probably adequate for our purposes). You can also choose to search "elswhere' in which case you'll be prompted to enter a "city, hotel name, et cetera(whatever that means in this context)" If you search a city you'll get a list of all the hotels in that city with reviews, star ratings, and addresses for each. Selecting a hotel allows you to check availability for a specific date range. Once you enter the dates you want to stay you'll be given a choice of rooms with the prices per night, and the option to 'Book Now'

Like: This app is very intuitive and simple to use. You can see photos of the facilities from within the application. In short you can get a ton of information about the place really quickly and without a lot of hassle.

Dislike: The interface feels more like a webpage than an app sometimes because the links are too small.

Kayak

Description: Kayak is by far the glossiest of these apps; it looks great! When you open it up you'll have a whole host of options from booking flights hotels and car rentals to viewing Kayak's Twitter page. I'd like to tell you that this app lived up to my expectations after the first impression but it kept freezing on me. I'm inclined to blame that on my heavily modified phone rather than the application however since it worked fine on my friend's iPhone.

I'll have to reserve my judgement on this one until I can really see it in action.

Have you tried any of these applications? Do you know of any other applications that let you find and book hotels? I'd love to hear from you in the comments section!

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