Webware

Say you're shopping for laptops online and you're trying to figure out how big one is just by its product photo and measurements. It's not easy is it?

If you can't make it to a retailer to get your grubby mitts on it, there's a new solution called Pective. Like Sizeasy, which I checked out last year, the site is set up to help consumers find out the general size of something based on its measurements. In Pective's case, the tool goes one step further by using product photos and scaling them to match the size screen you're using.

The site is chock full of cell phones, which you can get a good feel for--especially when it comes to holding your old phone side by side. In the photo below I've matched it up with T-Mobile's G1, which may look a little bigger than it should, but keep in mind that it's sticking out about an inch off the screen. If you find something that's noticeably off you can vote to have it enlarged or reduced, which instantly changes it by one size measurement.

Pective does a pretty good job matching up T-Mobile's G1 with the on-screen version. It actually looks closer than this, but it's hard to tell since it's sticking an inch off the computer's screen.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET Networks)

To add your own photo you simply direct the service toward a hosted photo, then crop it down with a built-in editor and plug in its width and height. The entire process only took me about a minute, although I had to track down a properly large, high-resolution shot (which was hosted elsewhere) and the proper measurements. In the future it would be nice to have a search tool that tracks these down for you and lets you upload high-resolution shots from your hard drive.

For the time being you're only able to browse through the directory 12 shots at a time. On the horizon is a search tool (powered by Yahoo BOSS) and product categories that will let users browse through items by type.

Pective was made by Pratham Kumar, whose other projects include Firefox extension No-NSFW (coverage) and the now defunct 2View.

Related: All the glory of the universe, in a single Flash app and XKCD: Height