Zomato is possibly the ultimate application for the foodie! Restaurant menu, location, contact details and even user reviews are available in an instant. The application will also identify your location and offer a choice of restaurants in the area, if that is what you want. It is time to make the smartphone search for food!
Getting the app: Very simple
Downloading the app is pretty simple. From the phone’s web browser, just head to the website http://www.zomato.com/blackberry. Use the Wi-Fi or 3G/EDGE/GPRS, whichever you wish to, and download the 400kb application. Installation takes a couple of minutes post downloading.
Look and Feel: Simple elegance
The Zomato app essentially has a clean layout on offer. On the home screen, there are three options available. “Discover” lets Zomato identify your location via the phone’s built-in GPS (or cell tower location) and offer a random restaurant for you to try out. The “Explore” option lets you search for restaurants either via the automatic location discovery method or by manually entering a location and getting a list of restaurants in the vicinity. The third is the “Search” option which lets you search according to a restaurant name, cuisine type or by location.
The theme of white and red is prevalent throughout the app. The white background with red icons lends it a clean, yet catchy look.
Performance: The food finder!
While the Zomato app works only in certain cities at the moment, it does work wherever it is supposed to work! Currently available in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Pune, Zomato will not disappoint. Download the app and sign-up/sign-in to the Zomato account.
We tested the app on the Blackberry Bold 9780 with the Blackberry OS6, and were not disappointed. The app automatically identified our location in a matter of seconds. Since we were indoors, where GPS doesn’t usually work, it leads us to believe that the app used the local cell tower location to identify our position. Good thing, because the results are a lot more accurate.
[RELATED_ARTICLE]Once the location is logged, you can use the Discover, Explore or Search options. Click on Discover and a random restaurant pops up every time, which is in the vicinity of your current location. The address, contact details, type of cuisine on offer, menu card and even user reviews are available in a jiffy. If you use Explore, Zomato will list all restaurants in the area. Click on any, and the next page will have the address, contact details, type of cuisine on offer, menu card and even user reviews, much like the Discover option. When you click on Search, you can type in the name of a restaurant, name of a location or simply the cuisine (Italian, Chinese etc.) you fancy eating. The results will throw up all the info and options you need.
Read on to know more about the performance and our take of the Zomato app…
Every single time we tested this app, in various locations, the results thrown up were crisp, clear and complete in terms of relevance and variety. More than 12,000 restaurants are listed by Zomato, at the time of writing, and we have no reason to disagree with this claim. We searched for a little known bakery in Kailash Colony market, and Zomato threw up all the correct info about the place in an instant.
The only disappointing part of the entire Zomato experience is the way it handles restaurant menus. The menus are essentially photographs of the individual pages, which are at times not clear, info gets chopped on the sides or take a long time to load. This essentially grinds the app to a sudden and unexpected halt, after a cruise all this while.
Our Take: For the foodie
Zomato is possibly the ultimate application for the foodie! Restaurant menu, location, contact details and even user reviews are available in an instant. The application will also identify your location and offer a choice of restaurants in the area, if that is what you want.
In a nutshell, the app is free, nifty little download, and shows up complete and accurate results. We recommend you download this app and keep it on your phone, even if you think you won’t be using it too often. Because someday, definitely, the hunger will get the better of you! And if you plan on using this regularly (admittedly!), you will not be disappointed.
Specs:
Downloadable app; available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry smartphones; works on 3G/EDGE/GPRS; location based results; free to download
Ratings
Features: 7.5
Performance: 7.5
Build: 7
Value: 8
Overall: 7