Keyboards mouses and mobiles: Iomega SuperHero iPhone Backup Dock Review

Backing up the iPhone’s contacts either requires you to plug the handset into your computer or purchase Apple’s MobileMe service. Sure, you could sync everything with Gmail, but in our experience that hardly works perfectly.

Iomega’s SuperHero iPhone Backup dock allows you to safely and securely backup your contacts and photos to an SD card. Included in the box is a 4GB card, so if you’re photo crazy you might want to seek an aftermarket card, but it will most certainly suffice for your contacts and a fair amount of pics.

Dock an unlocked iPhone and the accompanying app automatically launches asking if you want to begin syncing your contacts and photos. If no response is provided it will automatically begin syncing within 30 seconds. Contacts sync within a matter of minutes, while each photo can take up to 30 seconds, using an iPhone 3Gs. It’s a some what cumbersome process, but assuming you’re leaving the phone in place to charge over night it should be a nonissue, at least for the initial sync.

SD card slot and AC power port

I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t an audio out for a set of speakers and syncing photos takes much longer than I anticipated. And while the dock appears to be backing up photos and contacts, there is no built-in port to transfer the data from the SD card to your computer, unless you’ve got a memory card reader. However, restoring your contacts and photos simply requires that you place your iPhone back in the dock and choose the restore option. I didn’t test this function for fear of writing over important data, but I’m assuming it takes just as long to sync in either direction. The options menu allows you to choose if you want contacts, photos or both synced to the SD card and you can encrypt the data with a password just in case the SD card slips into the wrong hands.

Your contacts and/or photos might mean the difference between success and failure, in which case the $70 price tags could very easily be justified. I, however would be more willing to drop that kind of loot if there was an audio out port.

30-pin dock with removable stick sync instructions