One of the great advantages of Android is the fact that you have access to all your files on your mobile device. You can easily manage all your files from picture, movies, documents and more. But of course, how you manage your files and the user interface will depend on what app you’re using. ASTRO File manager has been around since 2008 with over 17 million downloads on the Android Market and a 4.6 average rating. This is a rock solid application and it has been recently updated with a brand new UI and support for honeycomb tablets. Now on to the details.
The new ASTRO UI is simple with new icons and a split-screen layout taking full advantage of the larger tablet size. On the left side of the screen you have the navigation bar with large icons that can be customized. There are two drop-down menus on the left side that includes “devices” for quick access to pictures, music, movies, and others folders along with your “bookmarks”. Long pressing on any file or folder brings up a list of standard file operations like copy, move, delete, and more. You can perform multi-file operations and new drag and drop functionality has been added. There is also a built-in image and text viewer so you don’t have to leave the application. Most operations are intuitive and simple but if you need assistance the help menu is very useful and easy to navigate.
ASTRO goes beyond simple file management and give you other tools like application backup, SD card usage, and task killer. I thought that the SD card usage was very useful with a good layout but the task killer UI was deficient with very small text. Beyond the tools, you can also setup networks with FTP, bluetooth, and SMB (windows) modules. In addition, Metago Inc recently announced ASTRO Backup which is a cloud backup service that will integrate with the file manager. It will be available soon and should certainly enhance this already great application. Overall, ASTRO is a very powerful app that gives you complete file management control over your mobile device without any cost.
You can download the app from the Android Market.
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