Test device: LG Optimus Speed / 2x
Android-Version: Android 2.2
Mods: MoDaCo Fr8
The following options can be found in TripAdvisor's main menu:
- Hotels
- Restaurants
- Things to do
- Forums
- Near me now
There's a search function for each of these categories. In order to personalise search results, they can be filtered according to price range, location or types of restaurants.
The search results show the name of the place (restaurant, hotel, etc.) and its rank in the TripAdvisor 'top' lists. Ratings are shown using a five-star system (except that the stars aren't actually stars, they're circles). There's also information in regards to distances from your current location; tap on the distance indication and Google maps will display the location, allowing you to navigate there directly.
User reviews can include photos; addresses (both snail mail and email) / websites / phone numbers; ratings and average costs.
The 'Near me now' function is great for discovering restaurants, hotels and other attractions in the vicinity of the location. I found this to be especially useful for finding nice places to eat near my hotel.
The app is available in lots of different languages, and if ever the place you're interested in hasn't been reviewed in your mother tongue you can always use Google Translate to at least get the gist of the review (more often than not you'll find that you get a pretty good idea of what the reviewer is saying, even if the translations aren't perfect).
When trying to set my location I received several notifications that my location services weren't active. I was able to circumvent this error by tapping on the menu button and then selecting 'Near me now'. The app was then able to track my position and everything else ran smoothly after that.
My experience with reviews written for place in Edinburgh was good: the ratings were adequate and a lot of the reviews proved to be helpful. It goes without saying that the quality of TripAdvisor reviews is completely contingent on the community, and in my experience so far I found the TripAdvisor reviews to more accurate than the Google maps ones. My experiences with Google Maps hasn't always been good—it's happened a few times that I wound up in rather dodgy places, despite the reviews having been good. Not so with TripAdvisor, at least not so far.
You have to be a registered user in order to be able to submit ratings.
Search results tend to be quite accurate, e.g. when searching for 'restaurants' only place that serve food were listed. When doing a search for 'restaurants' in Google Maps it can happen that a lot of hotels and bars are listed.
All in all, it's safe to say that TripAdvisor is a lot more helpful than Google Maps and we warmly recommend it.
Bottom line:
If you're off on holiday somewhere (lucky b*stard!) and know that you'll have access to internet where you're going it's definitely worth downloading TripAdvisor and trying it out. Search results are better than the Google maps ones, and the app also provides a few other useful functions.
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