WinZip for Android doesn't zip

There are plenty of Android apps that can zip and unzip your files for you. File managers like ES File Explorer have zipping and unzipping built in, and they support other formats too. If you want more, there are apps like ArchiDroid that open almost every compression format under the sun.

And now WinZip enters the Android scene. Better late than never, you may say, but it's way too early to release WinZip for Android in its current state.

Because WinZip for Android sucks. Really. It's totally useless.

WinZip for Android unzips zips. Big deal, there are hundreds of Android apps that unzip zips. Many of them don't just extract zips, they create zip files too. But not WinZip, because it only knows how to open 'em, not how to make them.

WinZip only opens zips, it ignores all the other compression formats out there.

Can its user interface save the app? Nope. The back button doesn't take you to the previous folder, it only exits WinZip. The only way to move up is through an on screen button, and once you're in a zip even that doesn't work anymore.

The search button doesn't do anything when you're in WinZip. You can't search for zips, and WinZip won't let you search inside zips either.

The only useful button sits outside WinZip. It's called "uninstall." In its present state WinZip for Android is no match for ArchiDroid, ES File Explorer, or any of the other thousand competing apps in the Google Play store. The WinZip programmers still have a lot of work to do if they want to turn their Android app into more than the waste of bytes that it is now.

• WinZip for Android
• ArchiDroid
• ES File Explorer