File manager X-plore needs to explore touchscreens

Blast from the past

Update: X-plore improved a lot. Most of the issues that plagued the first versions are fixed now. If you ditched X-plore before, give it a second chance.
Back when I used Symbian, X-plore was the best file manager for my Nokia. And now the Android version is totally free, without delays and nag screens.

But X-plore got stuck in the past. Back when Symbian was big phones had small screens and big keypads, and the Android version of X-plore is not adapted to touchscreens at all.

Big menu

X-plore has an on-screen menu button that just replicates what the hardware menu button does. You really need to dig into that menu to select multiple files or folders, because X-plore won't let you do that from the main screen. You have to open the menu, navigate into a submenu to select more than one file, and then again and again for each and every file and folder that you want to select.

Selecting a file or folder takes one tap, opening it takes a second tap. Checkboxes on the edge of the screen for selecting files and folders would really make a difference, but X-plore for Android doesn't have them.

Speaking of folders, X-plore shows your SD card as a subfolder of the phone memory. There's no option to show the card only unless you tell it to hide all system folders. A button to toggle between internal memory and memory card would make the folder list way less cluttered.

View and read

X-plore comes with a built-in text and image viewer, and a player for some audio formats (mp3 and ogg, but not aac). It insists on opening supported files in its own player. There's no option to set your own preferred player.

X-plore reads your IMEI whenever you launch it, and it asks for full internet permission. It's probably only to send crash logs, but you may want to tame X-plore with apps like DroidWall and LBE Privacy Guard anyway.

The promised root access didn't work on my rooted Motorola Defy. X-plore showed all the system folders and their contents, but it never bothered to ask Superuser for root permission so I could only watch, not touch my system files. Maybe you have better luck.

There's one good thing about X-plore for Android: it has the same folder tree view mode of its Symbian parent. But that's not enough to compete with ES File Explorer or File Expert. What worked on the keypads of yesterday doesn't work on todays touchscreens.

Update: X-plore improved a lot. Most of the issues that plagued the first versions are fixed now. If you ditched X-plore before, give it a second chance.
• X-plore (Android Market)
• X-plore (Lonely Cat games)

The competition:
• ES File Explorer
• File Expert (Android Market)