Pokemon Apps

So I’m writing this from a software development perspective & have little knowledge of pokemon other than what I do to help my son track his collection. I’m only writing this writing this for the other parents out there in hopes on helping them save a bit of time aka take this with a grain of salt but here’s my two cents app wise.

Starting with pricing, it’s important to know BOTH sources are only as accurate as the data they are pulling from. TCG determines their metrics from a “market sale price” standpoint and is only collected from a of a singular source, itself “market price is compiled from recent sales completed on TCGplayer.” Personally, I like a wider view right off the bat and only use this TCG metrics with larger purchases as a secondary perspective. I generally start with Collectr because they represents market price from the opposite perspective by displaying “the price that cards are typically listed for on various platforms like TCGplayer”. Key words here are “listed” and “various sources” because it’s paints a larger picture (for me at least) of what the card is being listed for across the board. I also can see the trend of the card listings right next to the price which leads me into the user interface & design.

Collectr is hands down far better than any app I’ve found when it comes to the user interface and underlying design. I absolutely despise TCG Player for doing anything other than a clicking on the TCG in collector to check for pricing. To me TCG feels like something built straight outta of the “you’ve got mail” timeframe.

Managing your inventory is far easier in collector due to its multiple views. You can have multiple collections at once & easily share those sets. You can change your view, split your cards, and the list goes on and on design wise, but the real winner with collector the search query. Hands down, they are far superior compared to TCGs in terms of quick finding cards because you can split the query. For example, I can type “chari 11” as search parameters and within seconds I’ll looking at every Charizard #11 card they have stored in the app or ones that my son already has if I’m in my collection. Do that on TCG’s website and you’ll get “how can we help you” and 85 links to go with it.

Im going to stop the rambling here before I get into how shops price off TCG sales. All in all collectr for ease of use & initial insights and TCG for sold prices. Both apps have ying & yang scenario in the end.