Every windows mobile user knows this situation: you got a new device and now you have to transfer all the data from your old smartphone to the new one. There are a lot of backup applications out there, for example sprite backup, which provide different features for restoring system backups to new devices with newer rom versions. But those restore operations are never perfect on a completely new device, and its almost 100% sure that you will have some kind of bugs during the first days of work with your new phone. Working with active sync can also often cause trouble with missing calendar entries and synchronisation errors, so having a PIM backup can also come in handy.

The best way to set up a new device is to install all your apps again, in order to have a clean system. But not only apps need to be set up, you need to find an easy way to transfer your PIM data (Tasks, Calender, Contacts).

PIMBackup is a freeware tool which will give you exactly this feature. It will backup all your PIM items to a file, and you can restore them whenever you want on any windows mobile device. Of course even PIMBackup isn’t perfect, but its so much better that restoring old system backups on a new device.

You can back up appointments, call logs, contacts, messages, speed dials and tasks. Starting an manual backup is very easy, just check the items you want to back up and choose the directory for the file on the next step. The backup process is very fast. I have some hundred tasks, appointments and contacts and PIMBackup needs about 2 Minutes to backup everything.

Another great feature is to schedule the backups. This isn’t really anything special on the first glance, but the best part of the schedule is, that you won’t even notice it when working with your device.

So if you set up a schedule for every monday at 2:00 pm, and you are actually working with your phone at that time, you won’t notice any lags. This is something which can’t be said about other backup apps.

Also there are options to set the number of kept backup files, the exact time and the possibility to turn off the device after backup.

I think PIMBackup is one of those essential apps for windows mobile, because of its very easy set up and high effectiveness.

If you want to try it out, just head over to the homepage of PIMBackup. You can find many other great tools on that site.

[xrr rating=4/5]