Most the photos, videos, and contacts that you saved on your smartphone are very important/precious memories that you do not wish to lose it if you happened to brick/lose your smartphone.

Android and iOS does provide back up solutions like Google Drive, Google Photos and iCloud but the given free storages are either insufficient or expensive subscription fees.

If cloud storage isn’t your thing, Western Digital has introduced offline backup solutions for iPhone/iPad. The SanDisk iXpand Base doesn’t only back up your photos, videos, and contacts; it even charges your Apple devices. The idea is to put the iXpand Base on your nightstand, connect your iPhone to charge at night while allowing it to transfer your files into the base.

Inside the box, it comes with the iXpand Base and an AC Adaptor only. Weirdly lightning USB cable is not included in the box despite it’s only meant for Apple iPhone/iPad and it won’t cost much for a premium product.

The bottom of the unit has a rubber strip for better grip when you place on your desk or wherever you might use it. The USB port that connects the USB Lightning cable is located at the bottom and can have clutter-free cable management around the base.

It has a grippy surface and slopes slightly on the base so your iPhone will stay on the surface. The iXpand Base uses 15W of power to charge your iPhone and at the same time back up your data (with SanDisk iXpand Base app installed)

At the back is where base’s houses an SD card that backups are stored. The unit that I have gotten is a 128GB and you can swap the storage to bigger up to 512GB where what iPhone/iPad devices get.

When you have the SanDisk app installed, as soon as you plugged to the base it will start a backup and will be charging the phone at the same time. Basically, it will scan your last backup and adds new photos, videos, and contact to make sure consistent full resolution backups.

Somehow if you lost your iPhone or you would like to retrieve the files on the iXpand base, you still can remove the SD card and put it in a card reader. If you don’t have a card reader, you can get a microUSB cable and connect to your PC/Mac to retrieve your files.

What if you have multiple iPhones? Fret not, there’s a multi-user support so with a larger capacity would benefits from it.

Verdict

The execution of the SanDisk iXpand Base is great and premium design but the price point is rather at high side; RM 369 up to RM 899 for 64GB to 256GB. The backups will only take place when put it in charging instead of the smaller iXpand with Lightning able to do the same not to mention it’s more affordable and portable. Transfering files between devices are much easier.

The SanDisk iXpand Base can be purchased from SanDisk’s official store here in Lazada Malaysia.