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> Review :: Abidia Wireless 3.0, Rating 4 out of 5
smeg36
post May 21 2005, 05:06 AM
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Abidia Wireless 3.0
By Abidia
MGN Rating -

Rating Legend

1 star: Find something else; save your money
2 star: Below average; not recommended
3 star: Average; performs as advertised but not inspiring
4 star: Good; worth the money
5 star: Great; best of its kind on the market

Review by Smeg36
Review Date / May 21st, 2005


If you are a power user on ebay, or if you just watch the occasional auction to find a great deal, Abidia Wireless can help. For example, I am writing this review while on an airplane on a trip to Florida for a job interview. I also have my wife's PalmOne Treo 600 listed for sale on ebay. I am going to be completely mobile with my Dell Axim X50v and Audiovox SMT5600 for the duration of my trip, which will overlap most of the auction. However, I will be able to continuously monitor the status of the auction by using Abidia Wireless.

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Abidia Wireless is compatible with many different platforms, including Palm, Microsoft Smartphone, Pocket PC, and Symbian. Abidia was kind enough to provide me with both the Pocket PC and Smartphone versions for this review. This was very useful because I use both my Pocket PC and Smartphone for data in different circumstances, and was able to use Abidia on both devices accordingly. The layout of the two versions I tested were very similar, creating a familiar interface to use on either device. It is a fairly intuitive layout, with straightforward menus and options. It didn't take me long to become familiar with the software, and I was up and running with my ebay account in no time. For those of you who don't like figuring out software through trial and error, there is a very detailed manual available as well.

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Abidia Wireless is a very useful application for any ebayer. It is sort of like a mobilized, software version of My ebay. It contains three main categories; Buying, Selling, and Searching. In these main categories, there are sub-categories. The unique aspect of Abidia is syncing with your ebay account. This means you can view all your auctions without connecting to the internet. This can come in handy for situations like the one I am in; on an airplane where I can't get online. I synced Abidia with ebay right before takeoff, and can browse through my auctions as I write this review. The syncing process is fairly speedy, especially considering I was doing it over a GPRS connection, which is slightly slower than dialup. It took about 30 seconds to sync all the auctions I am watching and selling. You can choose to Sync All the categories, Sync List (the sub-category you have open), or Sync Item (the specific item you have selected). This makes the syncing process even faster if you just want to update one auction's status. Syncing Abidia Wireless is much faster than trying to load ebay on a mobile device, and log into my account, which takes up to 5 minutes.

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Lets view the main categories in more detail, starting with Buying. The sub-categories here are Bidding, Won, Lost, and Watching. When you open one of the sub-categories, you can view the title and price of all the auctions stored within. From here, you can select the specific auction, and choose to go to the Details, Image, or Listing. The Details contains all the standard auction info, including the time remaining, number of bids, a small picture, etc. The Image is pretty obviously a photo of the item. The Image didn't always appear though. If the auction contains hosted pictures, which my Treo 600 auction does (as do many ebay auctions), the Image section will contain an Abidia splash screen instead. The Listing contains the description of the item.

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Next is the Selling category. The sub-categories here are Selling, Unsold, Pending, and Sold. As with Buying, you can view the Details, Image, or Listing of any auction you have. Also as with Buying, you can sort the auctions based on a number of criteria. This includes Price, Buy, Bids, Qty, Ends, Bidder, and Seller. If you have numerous auctions in any sub-category, this can come in handy to sort through all of them.

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Searching is the category I found the least impressive. With this option, you can add keywords to search ebay for when you sync. It will then find all the auctions matching your search, and download them when you sync. I had a couple problems here. A few keywords that I searched yielded no results. But when I searched the same word from ebay, I found one or two results. Also, the search feature will drastically increase the sync time because it will be syncing many auctions depending on your keyword. Each search that you add to the Searching category will become a sub-category. Searching was one of the few aspects of ebay that I prefer to use the website to do. While the Searching function works, the results are kind of difficult to sort. On ebay, I search a keyword and find the price of all auctions ending soon. I then will sort all the results to the Buy It Now items only, with the highest price first. Abidia is slightly more complicated in the sorting process, but can perform this function when required.

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Overall, I am very pleased with Abidia Wireless. My initial impressions of the software were mixed. However, after a week of use I am hooked. It makes a great addition to the ebay process. Some of the features I find more useful than others, but for the most part it works as a great ebay companion. The ease of checking an auction's current status on my mobile devices, combined with the speed of doing so, has made Abidia a mainstay of my mobile world.

More information about Abidia Wireless can be found on thier website.


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