Review: Iomega SuperHero

The Iomega SuperHero is a hybrid charging dock and SD-card-based backup station for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The only problem is, it's not that super.

The sales pitch goes something like this: You're pretty anal about protecting your data, and losing your iPhone contacts or photos would be the end of the world to you. But connecting your iPhone to a computer and regularly syncing to iTunes isn't something you can force into a habit.

Priced at $70, the Iomega SuperHero dock is designed to streamline backups for you. Stick an SD card in the slot, launch the Iomega SuperHero app on the iPhone (a free download available in the App Store), dock the iPhone and hit "Backup."

This is the part where I would normally say, "and boom," but it's more like, "and prepare to wait until your teeth fall out and skinny jeans go out of fashion."

The Iomega SuperHero backs up contacts quickly, but it takes for-ev-er to back up your photos. It took roughly four minutes for the dock to transfer a single photo taken with my iPhone 4 to the SD card. I take a lot of photos, and life is too short to wait for this thing.

To be fair, this isn't a big issue if you just sync your iPhone while you're asleep. But there will be times when you just want to do a quick sync and head out to meet friends, and backing up with iTunes will get the entire job done in a few minutes. Plus, syncing to iTunes is safer anyway, because it backs up your apps, notes, music, call history and plenty of other personal data beyond your contacts and photos.

If you do lose your iPhone or drop it in down the shitter, you can pop a replacement on the dock and hit the "Restore" button in the Iomega SuperHero app to send your contacts and photos over. But again, that's not very useful if you're not getting your apps, music, notes and other media along with your contacts and photos — so why wouldn't you just do the restore in iTunes?

The slow photo syncing isn't due to cheap hardware on Iomega's part — it's just that the act of copying bits to an SD card is always going to be sluggish. So, logistically, this product isn't a solid solution for regular iPhone backups. And for $70, I'd expect much more from an iPhone dock. The Iomega SuperHero does its job, but this accessory doesn't adequately fulfill a need to justify its existence.

WIRED Easy to set up and use. Attractive combination of silver and black plastic.

TIRED Expensive. Backups are incomplete. Slower than a zombie playing Scrabble.