TealShopper Review

In the spirit of Christmas today I am going shopping…again. Today’s review is for TealShopper from TealPoint Software. It costs $4.95 on the App Catalog.

A few days ago I reviewed (and really liked) a similar app called easyShop. They both serve the same purpose (keeping a shopping list), but TealShopper could easily be seen as easyShop’s good looking, buff big brother.

Overall TealShopper has a lot more features, looks a lot better, and is more customizable. Interestingly enough, which one is better will depend on what you are looking for. Before we go down that path, lets take a look at what TealShopper has to offer.

When you open the app you quickly notice how nice it looks. They basically tried to make the app look like a notebook, and they succeeded. You can even change the color of the paper you are “writing” on. Nice touch. Another thing you notice when you open things up is the sample lists. I believe all shopping apps should have this feature from here on out. All of these apps require a lot of typing in the beginning, but I think that having the sample lists (especially the packing one) lets you ease into things much more gradually than giving you a blank screen and saying “have fun!”.

When it comes to creating or modifying a list, you can do just about anything you can think of…sort, reverse sort, store frequent items, give priority flags, assign categories…. heck you can even store prices if you want to. Realistically though, I can’t imagine using this feature. Who keeps track of the prices of all the items they buy? If you do, then you are seriously hardcore and you should stop reading this and go buy this right now.

Now for my one complaint for this app (you knew there had to be one)… you can do anything you want, but it will take a few taps to do it. Now I don’t mean that the app is poorly designed (it isn’t). I simply mean that when you add in a ton of features it makes just about everything take more steps.

For instance… when I was playing with it, I decided to make a Christmas list. I started with the items I wanted and then I started thinking of items for my wife and kids. I would like these to be in one list with multiple categories. Trouble is, to make a category takes about five steps. If you want to edit the category, there are several more… realistically, these extra taps will just make me not use categories. However, if you are the type to keep track of the prices (why are you still here… go buy this thing!), then this won’t matter at all.

Once you have your list ready to go…you go shopping. As you find your items you just check them off. Here is one feature I miss from easyShop. With that app, when you check an item it goes away. Here it stays. This is complete personal preference, but I like watching my list shrink… makes me feel important. Not sure why.

So, how do you choose between this and easyShop? easyShop is literally a one trick pony… it is laser focused on creating a simple list and having you shop for it. TealShopper is the Chinese, Mexican, and Italian buffet. It has everything you want (my stomach hurts just thinking about that buffet). So if you want lightning fast and simple, go easyShop. If you want to create a myriad of different kinds of lists…. packing, chores, groceries, etc. then TealShopper is a better choice.

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Other links you may be interested in:

• Notes Review
• StickyMan Review
• easyShop Review