Sprite Backup review

Damien McFerran

We review Sprite Backup, an app that helps keep all your important files safe and sound

Published on Oct 28, 2009

While the concept of “Cloud computing” has allowed many people to breath a collective sigh of relief thanks to the fact that they no longer have to worry about losing valuable data when their PC or phone dies on them, there’s still an awful lot of information stored in your device that isn’t covered by this digital revolution.

Unlike Apple’s iPhone, which helpfully performs a backup every time it’s connected to iTunes, Android-powered devices are far less secure. Granted, Google’s online services – such as Googlemail, Contacts and Calendar – will obviously store your emails, telephone numbers and vital dates, but other items – such as photos, videos and text messages – are at risk should your Android device decide to shake off its mortal coil one fateful day.

Thankfully, applications like Sprite Backup are here to render some assistance. It allows you to backup all of your valuable information so that should the unthinkable occur, you’re not left entirely in the dark.

The volume of information you can backup is impressive. Sprite Backup covers pretty much everything on your handset, including application data, web bookmarks, call logs, music files, videos, text messages and even your basic system configuration.

You can tailor each backup to your own personal needs; for example, you may want to ensure your photos are secure, so you can toggle off the other elements and just create one backup file to cover your beloved images.

Restoring the backup at a later date is merely a matter of tapping the relevant option. It’s quick and straightforward, with the minimum of options to trawl through. Obviously if you’re restoring your settings to a new or entirely wiped phone then you’ll need to install Sprite Backup again before you can access the files, but as the Android Marketplace remembers what apps you’ve already purchased, this isn’t a problem.

The biggest issue with Sprite Backup is that it currently only allows backups to either your device’s internal memory of the phone’s SD card. This means that once you’ve performed the procedure you’ll need to get the created files off your phone and store them elsewhere – otherwise, if you end up dropping your device in a puddle or losing it altogether, then you’ll have lost your backup, too.

The ability to perform an online backup would have been excellent, and we hope that the developers are looking into implementing this in a future update, because it’s something that is already being offered by rival apps. While we can imagine it will take some time to funnel all of your videos, photos and other data down a 3G connection, it really is a must for this type of program.

If you can live with this minor quibble then Sprite Backup comes highly recommended. It’s a solid and dependable application that manages to combine a clean interface with excellent overall stability, and in that respect it has no equal on the Android Marketplace.

Until Google comes up with a way of allowing Android users to archive their digital assets in the same way that Apple does with the iPhone, this represents one of the best options for keeping your prized data under lock and key.