Why You Can Trust CNET Fancy review: Fancy
Fancy offers a similar photo-pinning function to Pinterest's, and it's available on both iOS and Android. The biggest difference, however, is the built-in shop.
While Pinterest on iOS is one of the more popular downloads in the App Store, the megapopular site still has yet to make an official app for Android, leaving tons of pin-addicts without a way to track their favorite pictures, people, places, and things while on the go. Fortunately, hot on the heels of Pinterest comes Fancy, another service for keeping a photo archive of all the things on the Web that you, well, fancy.
Fancy
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The primary way to use Fancy is to peruse other users' items and add them to your own lists. At first, it might seem a little voyeuristic, but make no mistake, it is a flattering gesture to add someone else's "Fancy'd" item to one (or more) of your lists. You can also upload your own pictures of items, either from your camera or your device's gallery. Unfortunately, the Fancy app doesn't integrate well with your mobile browser yet, so it doesn't let you Fancy items from a Web site.
Similar to Pinterest, Fancy requires you to create an account before you can get started. Doing so is easy enough, though, with options to log in with Facebook or Twitter credentials, or to create an account the old-fashioned way. Once you're in, you can immediately start going through an automatic feed of new and popular items, and Fancy any you like. Where Pinterest has pinboards, Fancy has Lists. The difference is that Fancy lets you add items to multiple lists at once, a feature that Pinterest has been sorely lacking. It's also easy to move individual items between lists, which can be a pain on Pinterest. Neither service is very good at bulk-editing, though.
The best part of Fancy has to be the main feed of hot and new items. Here, you see pictures of chic fashions, geeky tech products, sexy travel destinations, and more. And since the page reloads as you go, you might even find yourself Fancying pictures and following other users for hours on end. In most cases, the app will suggest a list for a Fancy'd item (for instance, Gadgets, Art, or Destinations), but you can also create your own lists as needed. When you tap an item, you can see its comments, people who recently Fancy'd that item, as well as other related items. And of course, you can share any item with friends via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr. Finally, for every item, you can tap through to see the original site from which the picture was first Fancy'd.
The biggest difference between Fancy and Pinterest is the shopping cart. On Fancy, many of the items you come across are also available for purchase, often at a big discount. You can add these items to your cart or hit Buy Now, and when you're ready, there's a standard checkout process for completing your purchase. Be careful, though, because in some cases, Fancy will try to sell you a similar item, instead of the exact item depicted in a photo.
Whether you're already a Pinterest user or not, I highly recommend giving Fancy a try. It's incredibly addicting and the pictures and items it features are surprisingly different from those on its rival's site. Not only that, it offers quite a few features that Pinterest still does not, like private accounts, adding items to multiple lists, and even badges for your Fancying activity.