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Tonido

Posted Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at 12:00 pm by Toni McQuilken 2 Comments

User Rating5.00/5

Tonido. Access, Share, Download ALL of your files, music, videos in PC from Smartphone. Now, you can quickly access your home computer from anywhere, thanks to Tonido. Instantly open, download or send files, folders, pictures or videos from your Android phone with just one click. Tonido makes it easy to work directly with your computer files, no matter where you are.You can do it all while listening to music playing in the background, too. 3 Easy Steps: 1) Install Tonido Android App 2) Install Tonido on your computer 3) Create user id and password.

Price: Free

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Quick way to share files between your computer(s) and phone
• Very easy to install and start using on both the phone and computer
• A cloud storage version is coming for $19.99 a month

Cons

• Your computer must be up and running to access files
• A cloud storage version is coming for $19.99 a month
• It doesn’t work both ways – I’d like to be able to access files on the phone from my computer as well

Features:

Tonido is a very easy-to-use way to access file from your computer on your phone. The basic service is free – install the client on the computer you want to link, and the app on your phone, and you’re good to go. The caveat is that the computer has to be on and awake to access the information. So if you, like me, use a laptop that’s kept off when not in use, the usefulness is a bit limited. I also would love to see a way to make it go both ways – instead of just accessing/downloading files from the computer to the phone, this is a great platform to offer the ability to wirelessly send files back to the computer. Having this feature would increase the usefulness of the free version by a massive amount.

If you want something a little more robust and always-on, Tonido has additional options. They sell what amounts to a small portable server called the Tonido Plug for $99 that acts as a personal server and makes those files available any time. It’s low-powered, and is uses USB – you plug the device into the router, then via USB attach an external drive. Because you can switch out the drives attached to it, the uses and combinations are pretty interesting, such as your own personal music streaming site, but switched out to a drive with all of your business documents if you’re going to be traveling. And because it’s USB, increasing the amount of storage space is just a matter of switching out the drive for a bigger one.

Another option Tonido is getting ready to launch is their cloud-based service. The service will be $19.99/month when it launches, but for people who sign up in advance, they’re offering a special for 50% off for the first six months. According to the company, the cloud drive will show up as a local drive on the computer, and there are no additional fees for moving files back and forth between the cloud drive and your computer. Right now, the amount of cloud storage you’ll get isn’t being release, with the company just saying it will be “ample” time.

What does all this have to do with the Android app? Well, it directly relates to how useful it will be for you. Obviously, the more access you give it, the more useful it will be. It will be interesting to see, once the cloud service launches, if a two-way transfer is added to the mobile client.

Usefulness:

Again, it depends on your level of involvement. The free, basic service is a great way to quickly grab files off your computer rather than needing to plug the phone in. However, if you purchase the plug or cloud storage options, the app will get more useful. And if music streaming is your cup of tea, then this is definitely a service you want to look into, since it makes it dead simple.

Ease of Use:

Very easy to use. I was up and running with the service and app in minutes, and navigating your computer on the phone is very simple – it shows up as the exact same file system, so if you know where it is on the computer, you’ll be able to find it easily on the phone.

Frequently Used:

It depends again on your own habits when it comes to leaving computers on and/or purchasing access. But it has the potential to be a app you’ll use every day.

Interface:

The interface is very simple, and offers a few buttons to let you navigate into the computer and access any file you have stored there.

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