Every once in a while life happens. Not all the time mind you … but Murphy has a set of laws for a reason, and I would be willing to bet you that the guy in the Windows Mobile commercial who flies off to a meeting with just his iPaq to give a presentation would have that bad-boy lose all it’s data 10 minutes before his presentation. Guarenteed.

So, what’s that got to do with Sprite? EVERYTHING! Why? Well, when it comes down to the heart of the matter – when the proverbial fit hits the shan … you need a plan. Think about it. You’re on a plane with a presentation in your pocket, stored happily in your My Documents folder on your trusty Cingular BlackJack (shameless love my phone plug). When all of a sudden you hear a familiar startup sound. You reach down and sure enough there’s the Cingular 3G animation that annoys you to no end. Suddenly you come to the realization that your homescreen doesn’t look right… it’s back to the default ugly Cingular homescreen. You get a small lump in your throat, and a wierd feeling in your stomach (kind of like the one you get right as your notice the police lights in your rearview mirror on the highway you’ve been hauling a$$ down.) Uh Oh. The presentation happens 45 minutes after you land and you didn’t bring a copy on CD. Did you just make a mistake that could cost you a lot more than a wasted trip?  

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a Sprite fanboy and it has absolutely nothing to do with the software. I don’t like that they make you buy-before-you-try. I’ve long preferred Spb Backup for the Pocket PC (for a few reasons) but they haven’t developed a backup application for Smartphone … so that leaves me with the only other Mobile backup application I have ever trusted with my data – Sprite. I’ll also admit that I’ve been in a situation somewhat similar to the one above. Fortunately I’ve not been on a plane and had everything "go away", but I have been on my way to a meeting with the department heads of a certain government agency to discuss migration plans and had everything go "poof". That my friends …. is the definition of "sucks". Thankfully  I had a backup and it only took a couple minutes to get my life back in order and to save my butttocks.

Needless to say I’m a firm believer in the need for having backups. Actually, backups are my living. I get paid to manage backups for many, many companies at my day job, and I bet you’ve all heard of at least a few I manage. I won’t name names … but you can bet even your kids know some of our clients. So believe me when I say – I believe 100% in the need to prevent Murphy from stealing your thunder and making you look like a tool.

Now, here comes the crowd that says "Bah – I’ve got everything in ActiveSync". Sure you don’t. ActiveSync is a great program for syncing contacts, email and documents, but it doesn’t do backups. It syncs. It takes information from point A and compares it to the stuff on point B. If it finds a change it makes it… and I’ll bet some of you have had it sync in the wrong direction and see everything go "poof". Better yet – how many applications do you have installed on your Smartphone? I’ve got 14 third party apps. 14 apps that I had to take the time to install and configure. 14 apps that contain my life, like say my passwords/licenses/lists/to-do’s. ActiveSync does not take my full life into consideration. When you have a full/hard reset ActiveSync does not restore your program files, your registry … your life! It restores your emails and your contacts, maybe your notes and your favorites. But wait, there’s more!!! What if you sync with an Exchange server for push email? ActiveSync won’t sync your email or your contacts anymore because you don’t have the server certificates on your device anymore. Hi. I’m screwed how are you?

Enter backup software.

Sprite 5.2 is the latest version of Sprite’s award winning backup software for Windows Mobile Smartphones and I’ll tell you right now, if you’ve used Sprite before, you’ve got nothing to learn… it’s that easy. But if you haven’t then definitely read on for some tips and tricks to make your life a life a lot easier!

Now, admittedly this looks pretty easy doesn’t it? And if that’s what you want, that’s what you get! Now, I’m a bit less trusting that the "easy way" is going to be my way … so let’s look at the advanced section.

There we go. That’s a bit more like it! Now again, remember you really don’t ever "need" to go into advanced mode. You can stick with the simple mode and configure pretty much everything you would ever need to with the desktop application. The desktop portion is not covered in this review since I don’t use it, but trust me it’s there and it works like a charm.

The screenshot above is the main screen for Sprite Backup and you’ll do almost everything from this starting point. What you see in this shot is the basics:

– Backup file selection – you chose what to backup. Now, I would have preferred a little more customization of the backups (like down to the file level) but this work just as well. I know there’s some things I’m never going to want/need to restore since I have copies on my storage card and it would be nice to save a little space in the backup size, but again were dealing with Murphy here so better safe than sorry I guess.

– Where to save the backup and what to name it. Pretty standard stuff eh?

Clicking the right softkey brings up the options menu and under this are some important topics you need to know about. Again this program is all about making your life easier when things go bad, and while backups aren’t difficult to understand or deal with on mobile devices there’s a couple settings you need to check before you get started.

This is optional – but handy. You can leave a copy of Sprite on your Storage card so you can easily hard reset and re-install Sprite with minimal effort. I can think of a bunch of uses for this… but by default it is unchecked. No, you don’t have to re-install Sprite just to restore, just make sure you leave the Create self-restoring Backup files option checked. Compression takes  a bit longer but it does save space, and you definitely want to leave the encryption option set as it will protect your information fron prying eyes while the backups are on the device.

Now the maximum number option is not set by default, so make sure if you want to limit he anount of data being used by the backups *and you will* that you select this option. I tend to keep it at three backup files. I usually keep a full/clean install with no junk in it on my laptop and in really bad cases I can go back to that, other wise I’ve found 3 days is usually sufficient. I chose not to limit the size since I vary the amount of data I have on my device pretty widely depending on the day and since I only keep 3 there’s not much need.

There’s not a lot to say about exclusions … except for you can use this to exclude files that you don’t want to back up. Admittedly this pretty well gets rid of my need for the ability to select files on the main screen, but I would like to have the option. I’m a bigger fan of using includes instead of a ton of excludes. Run enterprise level backups for a while and you’ll see why. Otherwise, just trust me it’s easier.

Again, you can configure this option from the desktop application or you can do it here – either way is just as effective. You can select a one-time backup, daily or weekly. I tend to do a backup daily simply because I add and remove stuff all day long and I never know which day I’m going to do something stupid. If you’re not as hard on your device as I am, then you might be able to get away with running your backup once a week. I definitely can’t  =)

So – lets get into the real important thing … how does it work?

I’m not without minor complaints, but overall the application works wonderfully and it does what it says it should. You want proof? Ok.

Backups:

Start time : 11/25/2006, 1:01:14 AM
End time : 11/25/2006, 1:03:08 AM

Time elapsed : 1:54 Min:Sec
Operation size : 24250 KB
Average speed : 212 KB/second

————————————————

Start time : 12/1/2006, 1:31:12 AM
End time : 12/1/2006, 1:32:54 AM

Time elapsed : 1:42 Min:Sec
Operation size : 25050 KB
Average speed : 245 KB/second

———————————————-

Start time : 12/5/2006, 1:31:05 AM
End time : 12/5/2006, 1:32:58 AM

Time elapsed : 1:53 Min:Sec
Operation size : 23195 KB
Average speed : 205 KB/second

Now obviously this is just a sample and you’re experiences will vary, but I have yet to have a failed backup. 2 minutes or less for 20+ MB of data to backup isn’t half bad.

Restores

The most important thing about a backup application isn’t how well it backs up your data – but can it get it back for you when Murphy swings a bat. The answer as far as this application goes is Yes. With a couple minor exceptions. I’d also like to toss in here that there is a device upgrade/OS upgrade option available for getting your stuff back after a ROM upgrade. I didn’t have a chance to test this functionality – but I’ll try to make sure I do if Cingular does a ROM upgrade in the near future and update the review.

So, I scrapped the installs I had done and went back to default everything (Start / Settings /Security / Reset). It was a painful couple of minutes I promise you. I was living totally on faith that the Sprite folks had done it right and my stuff was there and ready to come back. Actually I really was, because like a dufus I didn’t think this through completely before I started down this road and hadn’t sync’d my recently changed FlexWallet file, nor my Listpro list file which is on the device itself.

Total Restore size was about 22.07 MB and the time to restore was just over 1 Min 30 Sec. Not including the pre and post Restore reboots. Total time was a little closer to 4-5 minutes.

Anyway, I’m happy to say … 98% success. I got all my programs and files back. My homescreen was there, and everything looked great. For about 1 second. Then … I got a ton of unable to execute this program  or that program… and no way to get out of it. Pressing "Ok" did absolutely nothing. I was stuck. So what’s to do when you get stuck but shut the phone down and reboot it. Come on people … This is Windows after all, and a reboot tends to fix everything with Windows. You guessed it – 1 reboot later and life is good. The only complaint I have is that the Right Soft Key and my Side Button settings were lost. Not bad – 2 buttons mapped with a vendor supplied app were not restored. Nothing to boohoo about. I had that fixed in about 15 seconds.

Conclusion

Go get it. Not much more to say. The options for Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone are horribly limited right now and Sprite is THE option for you to exercise. It works as advertised and does what it should which is save your butt when you need it saved. Now its not perfect (not by any means) so PLEASE make sure you test it out before you put 100% faith into the program. Sprite is a buy-now-refund-later if doesn’t work company (again not a fan of this model but whatever) so pick it up and see if it works for you. If not – get a refund. I’ve personally filed for a refund in the past from Sprite – didn’t work on my device at the time – and not had any problems with them honoring the 30 day policy. At $29.95 it isn’t cheap, but the again at $29.95 if it keeps you from losing your presentation 10 minutes before you step into a meeting with the VP of your company… it’s the best money you’ve ever spent.

Note:

This review was written after testing on a Cingular BlackJack. The screen orientation for this device is the same as those for the T-Mobile Dash and the Motorola Q so it should display just fine on them as well. This is important simply because so many Smartphone applications have not been adjusted to display on these devices properly yet…

JAMM Store Sprite Backup for Smartphone WM5 page 

[tags] Sprite Backup Review, Smartphone Backup [/tags]