MoboRobo Smartphone PC Manager – A Review (Sponsored)

As much as we love our smartphones, sometimes we just can’t help feeling limited by its small screen (opinions may differ when it comes to tablets, but this should ring true if we keep only the smart “phones” in perspective).  What if you could control most of your device’s features from your desktop, without having to reach for it every time you get a message or you want to mute that call when you are hard at work and don’t want to be disturbed?  Also, what if you could make backups of your data (the important stuff like your contacts, messages, photos, videos, etc.) and restore them if something goes wrong with your smartphone?  The answer to these questions is now a resounding yes and there are many PC phone managers available for you to do this.  We’ll take an in-depth look at one of these – the MoboRobo Smartphone PC Manager – and see if it is worth our time and hard disk space it requires in this review below.

 What is MoboRobo and How Do I Use It?

MoboRobo is a software for your PC that can be used to connect to your smartphone and literally control every important aspect of the device, from your PC.  This means total control of the device without having to physically touch it every time.  While you get full support for Android devices, features feel a bit limited when it comes to iOS devices, although a jailbroken iPhone/iPad can make full use of the features MoboRobo has to offer.

Once you download and install MoboRobo, you can connect your device to it by two ways – over WiFi or using a compatible microUSB cable.  If you choose to connect over WiFi, you’ll need to also install the Mobo Daemon app on Play Store, although this app can be automatically installed if you connect using a microUSB cable for the first time.  Keep in mind that you’ll need to enable USB Debugging on your Android device so MoboRobo can install the necessary drivers and recognize your device.

Overview of Features

When it comes to features of MoboRobo, it seems capable of doing it all.  Here’s a quick look at what is possible:

• Back up and restore your data – For most of us, this will be the most useful feature of all.  Although Google backs up your contacts (if you have enabled sync on your device), that still leaves your messages and call logs.  With MoboRobo, you should be able to back up all this and restore them when you format your device or change devices

• Manage Your Media – While you could back up your photos and videos via Google+ now, that involves using up the limited bytes of data your mobile carrier provides.  Also, having a local backup of your media is far more easier to restore than from the cloud, without incurring the costs associated with a cloud restore.

• Back up apps and app data – This is another feature that we absolutely loved.  Whenever you format your device and sign into the Play Store, your device starts restoring the apps that you had installed previously, using up lots of data (be it 3G, 4G or WiFi, it’s still data and you end up paying for it in some way, right?).  Backing up and restoring your apps using MoboRobo means this cost is minimal to nothing (unless newer versions of your apps are available) as you will be using your computer’s internet connection to download the apps.  What’s more, you can actually restore the data associated with your apps (the settings on your Flipboard app or the savegame data for your Candy Crush Saga, for example).  What’s more, you can actually update your apps to the latest version right from the MoboRobo Apps screen!

• Information of your device – MoboRobo provides a complete overview of your device’s current status.  This covers the firmware you are running, the available space on your device, the number of contacts, messages, apps installed, battery status, etc.  Having a bird’s eye view of this kind enables you to know what’s eating up your precious SD card space and clean up where you need to, using the Phone Cleanup tool.

Our Opinion

All in all, MoboRobo seems like a great tool to get the maximum out of your smartphone and considering it’s completely free, this seems like the perfect way to manage almost every aspect of your Android/iOS device.  The lack of adware (and intrusive programs/toolbars that are installed on the sly) also makes us recommend this to our readers as it manages to trump all other tools like this one out there!