DataViz Documents To Go for iPhone Review

Product Overview

DataViz Documents To Go Premium for iPhone v3.2 has the following features:

• View/edit/create Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents
• View Adobe PDF, Apple iWork and other files
• Send/receive email from Microsoft Exchange and Gmail w/ attachments
• View/edit/sync files stored on Google Docs
• Sync files with a computer

Documents To Go: Standard Edition ($9.99) can do all of the above sans support for Microsoft Exchange, Google Docs and PowerPoint.

In Use

The home screen (shown above left) displays categories where files are stored and a recent documents list. Touching the categories such as the Desktop Files location brings up an intuitive file browser (shown above right). Each item listed is clearly labeled with a color-coded icon that makes it easy to browse quickly.

Documents can be edited in portrait and landscape mode. Shown above is a Word file; there editing controls include highlighting, font selection, text color, paragraph alignment, bulleted lists and indent.

There is a find feature as expected but also a find and replace feature, which is includes more advanced controls such as whole words and case sensitivity.

Documents To Go's Excel functionality is equally impressive, including advanced editing and formatting controls, a find and replace feature, and - my favorite - a most intuitive way of switching between sheets.

Users can delete or create sheets at the end, before or after the current sheet.

The PowerPoint functionality is best used for viewing slideshows, and it is easy to add notes to slides and navigate between slides.

Slide editing has limited functionality; slides can be inserted or deleted and the text of each slide can be edited. Upper-level functionality such as themes and adding pictures is not available; this is hardly a complaint given the confines of a small device.

Working with files stored on Google Docs was essentially the same as working with other files. Tapping a file downloads it and makes it available for editing; files can also be created or deleted.

Documents To Go does not connect with as many cloud services as its competitor Quickoffice Mobile Connect.

UPDATE: DocsToGo v3.2.1 adds support for Dropbox and Box.net.

Users can send a document they are viewing through email by touching the letter icon.

File sync requires DataViz's desktop application. Once the computer paired with the device, it syncs user-selected files and folders wirelessly. The traditional approach to syncing files generally works well, though for simply adding files, Quickoffice Mobile Connect suite's web browser-based interface is faster.

Conclusion

DataViz's Documents To Go for iPhone v3.2 is a fantastic mobile office suite. It has a slick and intuitive interface, excellent editing controls and Google Docs support. Performance is good and file syncing is easy.

The app is best used to view and make light edits to documents; the creation functionality is there but it is tedious on such a small screen.

Overall, it's well worth $14.99 for quick file access on the go.

Pros

• Slick interface
• Great editing controls
• File type support
• Good performance

Cons

• Software required to sync files
• Google Docs is only cloud service supported*

* Support for Dropbox and Box.net has been added in a new version

Individual Ratings: *

Service, Warranty & Support  
Ease of Use 
Design 
Performance 
Value 
* Ratings averaged to produce final score