Hipmunk Now Reducing Agony On Android

Hot flight search startup Hipmunk is about to land on Android. The app will be available for free, and you can install it right here.

I’ve tested the app and it looks great (it’s a nice reminder that Android apps can be slick and well designed, even if a lot of them aren’t…). And it works just as you’d expect: enter your destination, departure/arrival dates, and choose from coach, business or first class. The app will present Hipmunk’s grid of flights, which you can sort by Agony, Price, and Time. Oh, and all flights carrying life-sustaining Wifi are clearly labeled with nice orange icons.

As with the iPhone app, which was released in February, the Android app has one catch: when it comes time to actually purchase a flight,  you can’t do it from within the app. Instead, you can either buy tickets from the carrier’s mobile sites via the Android Browser (which really isn’t that bad), or you can finish things up from your desktop — the Android app gives you a passphrase that’s associated with the flights you’ve chosen, you just need to key it in at finish.hipmunk.com (you get the added bonus of feeling nostalgic for your NES).

Also, the Droid-ed out Hipmunk logo is pretty awesome.