Rant & Raves

NOTE: This is not paid advertorial. There is no incentives or rewards involved in this service review.

The other day Brian from Box sent me an email to invite me to try out their service for iPhone, http://i.box.net, an online storage service targeting individual or business users.

As you all should know by now, iPhone has a maximum capacity of 8GB internal data storage and it doesn’t offer external storage capabilities. After the OS and all other stuff, you have less than 8GB available in your iPhone. Now, for me, I put a few mp3’s (about 1000 songs), some movie files (compressed movies) and I don’t have much space left for other things. I would normally prefer to store some documents files such as the price list, product information, technical specifications and other things in my phone so if my customer requires it, I can just whip out the phone and email it. So this is where the online storage comes in handy for all of us iPhone users.

First of all, let’s get the most prominent question out of the way. It is FREE, for 1 GB storage. Unfortunately, if you want more, you gotta pay for it. 5GB for USD 79.95 per year, or 15GB for USD 199.95 per year.

Now why would one use Box.net? Free online storage services are aplenty if you dig deep enough, or if you have a Gmail account, you already have 5GB, and counting, of free storage at your disposal. Furthermore, Box is only offering a measly 1GB for free, and if you want 5GB like Gmail, you got to pay USD 79.95 per annum for it!

Well, let’s just say if you do use Gmail for your online storage, you will probably know that it is sometimes quite troublesome to upload those files, or to download it. And if you use the Gmail interface, you can only upload a limited type of files such as DOC, EXL, and etc. Box, on the other hand, is a dedicated online storage, so uploading and downloading are much easier, offering an almost one-click experience and there is no limit on what kind of file you can upload. If you want to upload mp3’s, go ahead. Documents? No problem as well.

Of course, there are other widgets out there that can turn your Gmail into a virtual online HDD. But it requires some hacking and stuff, so let’s not get into that.

Furthermore, sharing is made easier with Box too. If you want to share a file, you can create an URL extension and pass it to the person(s) that you want to share the file with.

Now, about storing my office documents…

iPhone doesn’t have the software for you to edit your documents on the go. Yes, you can view them, but editing them is just not possible, period. But with Box, they have implemented Zoho technology so you can edit your documents on the go. I have tried it, and using EDGE connection, there will be a noticeable lag when inputing the files. But using WiFi connection, the editing part is seamless and fast. So imagine the advantage you have for being able to edit the file before creating a link for all your friends/customers to see it.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that you can edit photo too in Open Box and the eFax application works, as long as you add in 011 prefix for international dialing. Once the fax is done, eFax will email you the status of the fax. Charming!

Conclusion: Well, I think Box has it’s own advantages over using Gmail. I tried editing the Word and Excel documents and it worked like a charm, even though it is a tad slow over EDGE network. The eFax works, but when I faxed a document to myself, it takes 3 times for the fax to come thru. The biggest advantage that Box has over Gmail is that it can take a wide variety of file formats instead of limiting to Excel, Doc, Presentation files like Gmail.

The only thing I don’t like about Box is that sometimes it opens a lot of windows for you, and you need to “right click” to get to editing and eFax and other services. For example, when I want to create a new document, it will pop-up a small window for the file name, and once I input the filename, a new zoho windows comes out. I keyed in something, click save, and have to close the window manually. Now it would be great if there is a “Save and Close” function, and the file will be refreshed automatically in the Document Folder.

Emailing the files is good and bad. First of all, it will email on your behalf to your recipients and it will inform him/her about the links to the file so they can go to Box to view it. Now it would be great if there is an option to email the whole file to that person instead of asking that person to launch their browser and visit the link.

Another thing that I need to test more often is the upload speed. In general, the impression I have is that uploading and editing is much faster on Box. Maybe it is the user load or some other reasons, so more testing is needed.

Anyway, I would recommend this service from Box to my friends and relatives.