Okay Geek Farm
Pogoplug Mobile review
Jason Tsay
One of the largest issues with new mobile devices is lack of storage space. With space hogging apps and games, you most likely don’t have enough space to fit all your media content. Rather than creating a mobile storage unit as a companion to your phone, Pogoplug has another solution - the Pogoplug Mobile. Designed for streaming content to iOS and Android devices, the Pogoplug Mobile is a server with unlimited storage. How exactly does it work? And more importantly, how well does it work? After spending a good amount of time with the device, we have an answer.
Features
- Host your own cloud.
- Infinite storage expansion
- Gigabit Ethernet
- USB 2.0
- Faster media processing
- SD card slot
- Streamlined, next-generation design
Our Impressions
Hardware and Setup
Inside the box, you get the Pogoplug, power adapter, and an Ethernet cable. The Pogoplug Mobile hardware is very plain and inconspicuous next to out router. About the size and shape of an Apple TV, the Pogoplug features a power adapter port, Ethernet jack, and USB port on the back, an SD card slot on the left side, and an indicator light strip on the front. It glows red when you’re offline and green when you’re online. The packaging makes a claim of a 60 second setup time and that isn’t too far from the truth. We plugged the Pogoplug into our router, into the wall outlet, connected our storage medium and were ready to go. From there, we went online, registered for an account, and linked it to our Pogoplug automatically.
Usage
So how does the Pogoplug work exactly? Put simply, it’s a server where you bring your own storage. You can plug in either an SD card or an external hard drive and your Pogoplug will automatically make all the content on the storage devices available via their mobile app, desktop app, or website. No uploading required. In a sense, you’re getting unlimited storage, only limited by how big your storage medium is. If you’ve got a 1 TB hard drive, you now own a 1 TB media server to hook up to your devices. If you have multiple sizeable storage devices, you might be able to afford to dedicate one just for use with the Pogoplug. Otherwise, you can just plug in your external hard drive each time you need to stream content, which can be quite a hassle. We didn’t mind ejecting the SD card each time we wanted to load a couple of new movies or content on it though we only chose to load on a select amount of media files and not our entire library. If you have a dedicated file backup drive, that might be the perfect volume to use as it would likely contain your entire music/video/photo library.
Mobile Apps (Android and iOS)
Pogoplug offers mobile apps for both iOS and Android. We were able to test with both and the experiences are actually slightly different. The iOS app displays 7 icons - music, photos, movies, files, sharing, favorites, and settings. In the music section, you can choose from songs, artists, albums, and genres; the player is the same one you’ll find with all music apps on the iPhone. Photos and movies are sorted albums by month and then organized by year. When you tap a video file, the app brings up a menu with “Optimize it, Watch Original, Sharing, Add to Favorites, Open in…” (more on this later). Files allows you to view your devices (if you have more than one Pogoplug) and directly access files on them. On the Android side of things, you see 5 icons when you launch the app - music, files, photos, movies, sharing, and a scrollable photo strip at the bottom (just like the Facebook app for Android). The disappointing but not unexpected thing about viewing videos on mobile devices is that only video formats supported by your device can play. If you’re on an iPhone, for example, your device will not be able to handle .avi videos. Instead, you’ll have to select the option to “optimize” the video, which basically means converting it on the Pogoplug. Using this method, you’re going to have to wait an exremely long amount of time. Whereas on an Android phone, you can use any player you wish to instantly launch the original video file (Yes, on the iPhone you can select the “Open in…” option but even though we had VLC installed, it would only open a smaller .m4v music video and not the full sized .avi movie).
Using our Android phone, we streamed through several full length feature films and the performance was flawless. Keep in mind you’ll need to have a stable Internet connection at all times or the video will begin to stutter. We couldn’t get the web client to stream our video although it did give the option to download. We streamed music via an iPod touch, Android phone, and also using the web client. On the iOS device, the interface was slicker than its Android counterpart, a result of Apple’s strict app design guidelines. Both apps feature an instant upload feature that will automatically transfer photos and videos to the Pogoplug as you take them.
The conclusion that we drew is that using the Pogoplug Mobile is a much more pleasurable experience if you own an Android phone. The interface may not look as nice as the iOS app but there’s more versatility in interacting with files through different applications.
Desktop Apps
You don’t have to own a mobile device to use the Pogoplug Mobile. You might be on the go with your notebook or not have a file on a certain computer at the time. You might even be using a friend’s computer but want to access your media or other files. The Pogoplug Mobile can be used in all of these situations. There’s a web client as well as a downloadable desktop client. The website (you can try this out for yourself with a free PogoPlug Cloud account at my.pogoplug.com) is fine for managing content and playing back music - the interface is relatively clean. You can share individual files with your friends and they’ll be able to stream your music for example but do realize that the speed will depend on your Internet connection. The Pogoplug Mobile also has “Backup” feature that allows you to have a Dropbox style folder on your computer that synchronizes with the Pogoplug. The downloaded client allows you to drag and drop files into the window and sort files into the Gallery, Jukebox, Cinema, and Files.
Overall
We think the Pogoplug Mobile is a great little server for those with mobile devices who are running out of space. With new services like Google Music and iTunes Match with iCloud popping up, streaming is becoming a more and more ubiquitous options for people. The great thing about the Pogoplug is that you won’t need to upload any of the files and you basically have unlimited storage. There’s also no limit on what you can or cannot store on the Pogoplug because, well, it’s your own hard drive. Just keep in mind you’ll be paying for the local storage youself so don’t be surprised when you buy the Pogoplug and there’s no storage space!
Pro’s
- works well
- tiny hardware
- unlimited storage
Con’s
- relies on your home internet connection
Where to buy
Pogoplug — MSRP: $79.95
