Home iPhonia iPhone Accessories ,,,,, In the past few days we have had the opportunity to try iXpand Base, the new one from Sandisk designed to reload and at the same time make a backup of all the most important data on the iPhone. It is a well-built product and has all the credentials to become the ideal companion for your smartphone, especially for its immediacy of use: the user will only have to connect the charging cable and let the system, which works autonomously and in the background. In the morning the phone will be charged and a copy of all files will be safe in its (removable) memory.
As did
The base is composed of two parts: the lower half is in satin metal, very heavy (overall it weighs just over 200 grams) and therefore sufficiently stable when it is placed on the desk or bedside table, especially due to the rubber ring on the bottom which improves its grip on smooth surfaces. The upper half is made of rubber, very hard and with a relief texture on the surface in contact with the smartphone, an excellent choice to prevent the smooth aluminum back from slipping since it is slightly inclined (on one side it is 2.5 thick. centimeters, on the opposite side 1.2 centimeters).
These two halves are connected together by a small central “column”, which keeps them spaced just enough to allow the Lightning cable to be twisted and hidden inside the base. The USB plug of the cable is inserted into the appropriate socket on the bottom and in this way you can decide to leave only those ten centimeters of cable remaining, sufficient to guarantee an easy connection of the phone for charging. This is an ingenious solution that avoids dangling cables and makes everything much neater.
Power is supplied through a 5V 3A charger included in the package, power required to ensure the right amount of current to the dock to start the backup system and recharge the iPhone at maximum speed (up to 2A, thus halving the charging times of the charger. original from 1A). The microUSB socket is on the back, next to the SD slot in which we find the memory card on which the data will be stored, in the case of our test sample with a 32GB cut.
How does it work
The first thing to do is download the free iXpand Base application from the App Store. At the first start it is necessary to follow the configuration procedure – it takes a few minutes – through which the various settings are decided, including access to the notification system. Allowing it is very important because it will allow the app to notify us at the end of the backup, which as anticipated occurs completely automatically.
In fact, just connect the Lightning cable and the dock, in addition to recharging the iPhone battery, it will save all the photos, videos and recorded contacts on the integrated SD card. It is not necessary to start the application: even when the screen is locked, the device is designed to start the backup system in the background, alerting the user with a notification: a second notification will notify us when the backup is complete. It is a clean and efficient solution as it does not require any user intervention. After all, at the end of the day, just connect the iPhone to the dock to recharge the battery and when you wake up, in addition to having 100% energy, there will also be the certainty of having a copy of photos, videos and contacts on a external memory, which can among other things be connected to the SD slot of the computer to possibly process the data or make a second backup copy on another disk.
The application designed by the Sandisk developers is really smart, so much so that at each future connection it first scans the files on the iPhone, thus avoiding storing data already present in the external memory, saving space. Speaking of space, what happens when the SD card is gone? We asked ourselves this question and to answer it we speeded up the test by saturating the memory with dozens of file folders – connecting it to the computer – to simulate the moment when, backup after backup, the card will inevitably be full. As it obviously happens, the system fails to complete the backup of the new files, warning the user that the memory is full. It is therefore necessary to intervene manually by eliminating unnecessary data, perhaps by copying them first to another disk.
For the record, among other tests we also tried to replace the power supply with the original 1 A Apple one: the result is that the system does not have enough power to start the backup, starting only the battery recharge. On the other hand, no problem if you replace the SD card with another one, perhaps of greater capacity: for the test we took a 16 GB one from Lexar, therefore from another manufacturer, and the system had no problems carrying out the backup all files in it. So if in the future you decide to upgrade the dock from the point of view of storage space, know that by purchasing a card of the right speed (at least a class 10 UHS – 1 80 MB / s) there should be no problems.
Conclusions
Before even putting our hands on iXpand Base we were a bit doubtful about its actual ease of use as, not knowing how it works, we were inclined to believe that the system required more intervention by the user. Instead, thanks to a greater opening of the operating system (we tried it on iOS 11), after configuring the app for the first time you will no longer have to think about anything. Just connect the phone while charging, even when the screen is locked, and the app will do the rest, backing up the files and alerting the user to completion with a notification on the lock screen.
We believe it may be the best solution to secure their data, especially for those who are reluctant to use a computer to connect the iPhone at least weekly to backup files. In this way, in fact, you forget how to make a backup and you have the security of having all your photos, videos and contacts safe. What if a file is lost or deleted? Just one click from the app to restore everything to your phone.
Retail price
Sandisk iXpand Base is also on sale on Amazon at a price of 69.99 euros for the 32 GB version. There are also 64 GB (€ 89.99), 128 GB (€ 134.99) and 256 GB (€ 199.99) models.
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