Review of Google Finance Mobile Applications
The portfolio applications are meant to update your portfolio from Google Finance in the real time on the mobile phone. You can always be up to date with your portfolio courses.
Release of the freeware application My Portfolio from SymbianGuru for Series 60.3 reminds me about an older application: a Best Portfolio from Smartphoneware which was meant for Series 60.2 phones. Thus I decided to make a kind of unusual comparison of those two apps, meant for different series, but so similar in the idea.
I would like to analyze the advantages of both applications and single out their drawbacks.
Here is brief information about the application to be analyzed:
| App name | Vendor | Price | Size, Kb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best Portfolio | Smartphoneware | Buy $9.95 | 43 |
| My Portfolio | Symbian Guru | Freeware | 52 |
We analyzed the following list of aspects and application details:
• Installation
• Trial period
• Interface and Application in action
• Special features
• Settings
• Help and Support
Both applications cause no problems during installation which lasts no more than couple of seconds.
Best Portfolio offers the 15 day trial version with no additional restrictions.
My Portfolio is a freeware application, that is why it has no trial version and you don’t have to purchase it. If you like the application, you may donate at www.symbianguru.com
Interface and Application in action
Starting My Portfolio for the first time you will see the main screen which has the following view:
Left soft key Options of the main screen offers the following list of buttons:
• Update portfolio – to update data
• Settings
• Register
• Help – application online help
• About us – to display information about the My Portfolio version, software vender etc.
In order to start using My Portfolio you need to enter valid login and password to your Google Finance in the Logins option:
At the first application start there is no data saved yet. After defining your Login and Password to Google Finance you should press Update and all data of your portfolio will be downloaded and shown to you as a list:
My Portfolio downloads information about your portfolio from Google Finance.
All information is shown as a list with the following columns:
• Symbol
• Last price
• Change in percent
• Mkt Cap
You can also see detailed information about every portfolio item clicking left soft key Options → Detail:
After updating you can choose the History button, enter the needed date:
And look through the portfolio data of the selected date:
The main screen of the Best Portfolio application contains no saved data at the beginning of its usage.
Left soft key Options contains the following list of buttons:
• Stocks – to add new or remove current stocks
• Refresh – to refresh the current stock data
• Refresh all – to refresh all stocks data
• Disconnect
• Settings
• Misc – contains the Legal notice, About and Register info
• Close
Having added new stocks the main screen looks as follows:
Unfortunately we couldn’t see Best Portfolio in action, as when trying to connect the following message appeared on the screen “Server didn’t respond in time. Try again”. The same message appeared during almost 5 hours.
My Portfolio application has the following special features:
• Detail – to view the portfolio data in details
• History – to find the needed portfolio by date
Best Portfolio application suggests one special feature:
• View detailed info – to overview the current portfolio in details
My Portfolio application suggests the following list of settings:
• Logins – to define Login and Password to Google Finance
• Autorefresh – to set time for automatic updating of your data
You can access Settings of Best Portfolio clicking left soft key Options → Settings:
• Automatic update – to activate or deactivate automatic data update
• Period – to define time interval of automatic update
Best Portfolio application has no Help file, this is not convenient for inexperienced users; it has an e-mail (support@smartphoneware.com) to contact a developer in case of any questions or suggestions. The support department works efficiently sending the e-mail in the course of 1 business day.
My Portfolio contains the detailed Help file; the e-mail for customers support is support@symbianguru.com The support department works efficiently and delivers answer to the question in the course of an hour.
Having tested the Google portfolio applications I can say that such kind of software is useful for people who take interest in financial business and have Google Finance account.
I liked My Portfolio application more. First of all it works efficiently and I had no problems connecting to Google Finance. It is very pleasant to use My Portfolio, just enter the Login information and update portfolio. Portfolio information is nicely and conveniently displayed on the main screen. The Detail and History options allow you to work with the information you need.
Best Portfolio software is compatible with Symbian S60.2 smartphones. The application is not bad. It has simple interface and is not difficult in using. But due to the connection failing I couldn’t test it to the end and show you the final result.