Review: ProtectCell

Dropping my phone into a blender on purpose seemed like a diabolical idea. But I did it anyway. The phone made all sorts of crunching and popping sounds as the plastic, metal, and glass were quickly reduced to a spinning, deadly soup. It wasn't the least bit horrifying. I didn't like the phone (an HTC Thunderbolt) that much anyway. Ultimately, it was more exhilarating than any The Fast and The Furious car crash.

OK, full disclosure. I was actually requested to drop my phone into a blender at the CES expo booth of ProtectCell, a company that offers disaster recovery services to smartphone owners. A few weeks before this year's CES, I'd agreed to test the service. I would be sent a loaner Thunderbolt on a Verizon contract with ProtectCell's full service plan attached. All I had to do was load some contacts, take some photos, download some music tracks, and add other precious personalizations to the device. ProtectCell wanted to demonstrate to me the full extent of its life insurance policies, which it offers as an aftermarket add-on for a wide array of phones, including iPhones and most of the latest Androids. The only extra bit of work for me involved downloading the company's data backup app, Digital Leash, and saving those contacts, photos and music tracks to the company's cloud service.

The annual subscription plans vary. The more basic ones let you restore data on a lost, damaged or destroyed phone after you replace the hardware yourself. The more expensive plans entitle you to an exact-model replacement of the phone itself, complete with all your synced data. A two-year plan for a new iPhone 5s starts at $120, and the Android plans vary but most are between $60 and $120 for two years. If you want the device replacement option, you pay a one-time fee of around $125 or $150, depending on the phone (though all the new phones covered by ProtectCell fall in that range). Plunk down that sum at the time of the loss and a new, pre-loaded phone is shipped to you in a few days.

So if your phone gets dunked, smashed, stolen, accidentally shot full of buck pellets, or just pureed into billions of silicon bits inside a food processor, ProtectCell guarantees your data won't be lost to the gods of circumstance. Of course, you can sync your own data to iCloud or Google for free, and keep it synced relatively easily — for almost everyone, this is a better option, as we'll see in a minute. But replacing the hardware yourself is more costly, and usually requires purchasing an insurance plan from the manufacturer, or from your carrier. It's in this scenario that ProtectCell presents a better deal — but again, whether the cost is worth it depends on which phone you have and who your carrier is.

To sweeten the pot, ProtectCell throws in a few extra features. For example, the service can locate and lock a stolen device, and there's an upgrade clause that gives you some money back for your used device if you decide to switch to a newer phone before your 2-year carrier contract is up. There's also an optional $30 identity-theft protection plan for people who are willing to take the risk of losing their phone but not their data or identity. The ID theft support is powered by LifeLock, which on its own charges $110 a year for the same service. In all, it's comparable to the services offered by your carrier or manufacturer (like AppleCare), but in some cases — especially in the case of a lost or stolen phone — it's more comprehensive.

ProtectCell seems to have a full inventory of most recent and older phones offered by 15 carriers, including some obscure ones like Helio and Alltel. For example, the AT&T iPhone replacement inventory stretches back to the 3GS model, and up to the latest 5c and 5s models. ProtectCell's Verizon collection covers nearly 20 different brands, from Apple to ZTE. Phones sold without a carrier contract, like the Nexus 5, are covered as well. ProtectCell even will replace the late, great, Palm Treo Pro which dates back to 2009. (Note: Non-iOS and Android phones do not have a data backup service, just phone replacement and ID-theft protection.) There are plans for iPads and Nexus tablets, too.

The app — Android and iOS — is simple to a fault. I found it to be so lacking, I wouldn't even recommend using it.

You install the app yourself. Touch one of its three buttons to back up Contacts, Files (Photos, Music, Video), or SMS Text Messages. Contacts and SMS messages are a one-click affair. But confoundingly, there is no batch operation for files. Photos and songs must be selected for back-up individually. If you have a lot of photos or music files, this is a trial as you toggle each, one by one. Shoot a bunch of photos and add a bunch of songs? Do it again. Considering how easy it is to sync a phone to your Google account, your iCloud account, or your computer, this is just a chore.

After my loaner HTC phone met its gruesome death-by-food-processor — a true head-on-crash disaster of crunching sounds, shattered glass dust, kaleidoscopic sparks, and acrid smoke — I called the Oregon-based customer support call center to request a replacement. My call was answered within 30 seconds by a friendly woman who checked my service plan and put me at ease, telling me my new phone would arrive within the week. Sure enough, in a couple of days, an exact duplicate of my model arrived with my previously backed up data I on it.

Apps, however, were another story. For those, you will need to manually restore everything. If you have an iPhone, you can load a back-up through iTunes, and Android users will see most of their apps flowing in from the Google Play store after they sign in to the phone. The only apps that appeared on my replacement Android phone were the original ones that come with the phone out of the box — all the crapware that Verizon and HTC had loaded onto the phone as a matter of course, which I had to delete all over again.

Depending on the model you are asking to be replaced, the phone you receive will either be a new or a refurbished unit. The company says the mix of replacement phones is 60 percent refurbished, 40 percent new — if your model is the latest device, ProtectCell won't have refurbished ones in stock yet, so you get a brand new replacement.

OK, you may rightfully ask: If there are all these cloud services that can backup all your apps and data, why spend the money on a service like this? In short, if you know how to back up your phone and you're already doing it, the ProtectCell cloud stuff isn't the selling point of the service. The device replacement option, however, is.

For example, AppleCare costs $100 for two years and covers damage, but it does not cover a lost or stolen phone. If your iPhone is repairable, Apple will charge you a service fee of $80 to repair your AppleCare-covered phone. If you have ProtectCell, you pay $20 or $30 more for the two-year plan, and you pay $125 or $150 for a replacement device. But that's the fee even if your phone gets lost or stolen, and it's still cheaper than buying a new, unsubsidized iPhone. ProtectCell's phone replacement costs are also almost always better than what your carrier's insurance policy would charge you. For example, if you're a Verizon customer, you can pay Big Red $10 per month (over two years, that's $240) and a damaged, lost, or stolen phone will cost you $100 to replace.

Keep in mind that ProtectCell doesn't offer tech support like AppleCare and the carrier plans do. But if you're prone to dropping expensive things into the toilet, the company's service seems like a worthy investment for anybody who likes to carry the latest (and most costly) hardware.