Buying a new phone is always exciting, but what’s not exciting is getting the new phone loaded with data from the old phone. I have seen folks carrying both – the old and the new phone for a few weeks after the switch because they have messages, notes, images, and a lot of other important files they might need, and they mean to do the transfer ‘soon’. Can’t blame them, such a drudgery that task is. If you save your contacts on an online account, it’s easy to sync across devices, but beyond that, you have to figure out a way on your own to get these transfers done. And if you are switching platforms, like iOS to Android, the complications increase fourfold. Although there are a number of ways to transfer data from the old phone to new, these aren’t straightforward for the average, non tech-savvy user. If you are looking for a one-click solution to transfer the data from an old phone to a new one, MobileTrans, a simple app from the house of Wondershare, can help. When I mentioned single click, I really meant it. Using the MobileTrans tool, you can connect both phones to a computer and click the button called Copy to get all the data to the new phone without any hassle. Let’s see how the product works and what you must know about it before you go ahead and use it.
Getting Started with MobileTrans
MobileTrans can be downloaded for free from the Wondershare home page. The free trial version is good enough to transfer just 5 contacts from one device to another. After that, you’ll have to purchase paid versions that cost between $19.95 to $39.95 to acquire all the features of the app. The app can transfer data between Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Symbian. Here’s a table depicting what you can transfer depending on the smartphone OS. Microsoft Lumia is not invited to the party at the moment and I am quite surprised to see Symbian instead. When compared to Microsoft, I am sure hardly anyone uses Symbian OS these days. Clearly, this part of the tool needs an update big time.
Transferring Contacts Using MobileTrans
After you launch the app, you can either select a direct phone-to-phone transfer or use the backup that has been created using the official tools for each platform. After both phones are plugged in and you select direct transfer, the app will read the data on the old phone and give you the list of the data that’s compatible for the new phone. For example, when you are transferring data from iPhone to Android, the Apps field will be grayed out, as this type of transfer is not possible. You can also select to erase the phone first before the transfer is initiated. This can be used if you don’t want any redundant data on the new phone. The transfer can take some time. While contacts and other information like call logs, calendar entry, and even the images didn’t take much time to transfer, messages took a considerable amount of time. It took around 3 hours to transfer just 1000 messages from an iOS device to Android and that’s a lot of time for data not more than a few MBs.
MobileTrans Can Restore from Existing Backups
Data transfer between Android devices was a breeze and you can literally clone your phone, but again messages can take a few hours. If you have previous backups from apps like iTunes, Wondershare, or Samsung Kies, you can use those backup files to write your data to the new device. The app will look for the default location when the backup files are saved by the official apps and load them directly. You just need to select the data you would like to restore and click Start Copy. A pretty neat feature if you don’t have the old phone handy.
Secure Wipe Your Old Phone
After you have transferred your data from the old phone to the new one, if you would like to securely erase it, MobileTrans can help you with that as well. The module erases all the data and also does a deep search to delete any traces of data that might put your identity at risk. It might take as much as an hour for the tool to completely erase your phone, which is quite a lot when compared to the default wipe feature of Android. But this one shreds the data securely so that it can never be retrieved. Note: According to the recent research, the default wipe feature of Android never wipes the data completely from the device, so information like emails, login credentials, and secure notes can be easily recovered by hackers. In contrast, the secure wipe feature of MobileTrans will make sure your data is deleted once and for all.
My Thoughts on MobileTrans
Undoubtedly MobileTrans is a useful app when it comes to directly transferring data from one mobile device to another. However the app is just not usable unless you pay for the full version, which can cost up to $39.95 for a personal license. One-time transfer costs $19.95. If you ask me, that’s not cheap. Would I pay for this tool? Nope. But that’s because I am a geek and know my way around my gadgets. But for someone like my dad who doesn’t want to go through the steps and hassle that comes with the free methods and has the money to buy peace of mind, this is a pretty good tool. It gets the transfers done simply and easily. The main issue I found while using the app is that it can take a lot of time for the transfer, and as the phones need to be connected using a wired connection, it leaves your devices unusable for as much as 3 to 4 hours. An option to connect the phones on Wi-Fi would be helpful. And of course, the lack of support for Microsoft phones is a problem. Apart from that, MobileTrans is a straightforward software. About the value, as you see in the screenshot above, the app is $19.95 for a one-time transfer license between two phones and $39.95 for 5 phones on a PC. In the best case scenario, you will use the app once or twice a year just when you switch phones.
Conclusion
That was pretty much everything about Wondershare’s MobileTrans. Always make sure you download and test the trial version before you purchase the full version of the product. I know testing 5 contacts is really not enough, but that’s what it’s limited to. Overall, the tool worked as they claim in my tests. Hopefully it should work fine for you too.
