Auto Trader, a classified magazine and website for selling cars and other vehicles, has released an official app for Windows Phone 8. The core of this slickly implemented app concentrates on making it easy to search for cars listed in Auto Trader adverts and view the associated adverts (description, car specifications, and high quality image galleries), but there's also good integration with the platform (click-to-call on phone numbers, view locations and get directions via Nokia Maps, social sharing, Live Tile pinning). 

Thanks to the Garage functionality there's also integration between the mobile apps and Auto Trader website. This multi-screen experience, which makes the app stand out from the crowd, enables you to save a set of search results, or a particular car advert, and then access them through any Auto Trader digital channel. For example, this means you can save a series of cars while browsing on your PC, and then quickly and easily access those cars while out and about using the mobile app. 

The apps feature set is excellent, but the overall design, which closely follows the Microsoft Design Language (Metro) also deserves praise, especially given the information density inherent in this kind of app. Thanks to its platform integration and overall performance (speed), it's also a good showcase for how a well built mobile app can offer a superior experience to a mobile website, even in an area where websites traditionally excel.

Auto Trader started life as a regional classified car sales magazine, but more recently has grown its digital channels, primarily the autotrader.co.uk web site and associated mobile apps. It is the UK's leading motoring website, with more than 10 million unique visitors per month, and is widely considered the number one UK marketplace for motoring related sales and services. It's arrival on Windows Phone is a feather-in-the-cap for Microsoft's mobile platform, but is also the latest step in the digital journey for a name that should be familiar to many a UK car buyer.

Windows Phone Store description:

Finding the perfect new or used car for you is easy with the official Auto Trader app for Windows Phone 8. Search, browse, compare and share.

The Auto Trader mobile application brings a rich browsing experience to your Windows Phone 8 device and makes it easier to search, compare and store cars you like.

The Auto Trader app can be downloaded from the Windows Phone Store for free. It's available world-wide for Windows Phone 8, but will only really be useful to those in the UK.