MobileSpy is second best to FlexiSPY, offering a similar feature set, and a good interface, but MobileSpy doesn’t score well on reliability, secrecy, and features when compared against FlexiSPY. Once we got it working on our device, Mobile Spy is a good product that just needs a few more years to develop. Neo Call has some features but they make it too difficult to figure anything out.
Spy Phone Review places Mobile Spy head-to-head
Most important thing to consider it that , Mobile Spy is not invisible after installation and it is relatively easy to find – not a good thing for spy phone software.
On Symbian cell phones Mobile Spy is visible in the application manager as a SettingsUI file. Any mobile user can check to see if Mobile Spy is installed on their handphone by keying the sequence *0123456789* that is used to access Mobile Spy’s control functions. Keying this control sequence into a handset will result in the Mobile Spy splash screen appearing on the screen of the target handphone.
Retina-X Studios conveniently lists the methods to remove Mobile Spy from the target handphone on their website. For people that need complete discretion, Mobile Spy may not be the answer.
Neo-Call’s first attempt at stealth was better than MobileSpy, but still very crude. Neo-Call interfered with the Symbian native installer causing serious problems and exposing the existence of the spy software when the user tries to install software, or uninstall other existing applications.
FlexiSPY really does offer more features, better support, and I always go back to the 10 day money back guarantee. They actually do refund money to people that bought from them, it isn’t an empty meaningless ‘guarantee’ made famous by the scamware guys, and even Mobile Spy talks about a guarantee, but their terms specifically state it isn’t available.
Documentation
As mentioned in the MobileSpy review pages Retina-X has a nice website with plenty of information available online, but there is no option for downloading this for offline reading. While the company has individual installation guides for each of the operating systems it supports, there are no screen shots or Flash videos depicting the installation process. FlexiSPY offers a lot more documentation and has a great knowledgebase and support system. I couldn’t figure out the Neo Call website, so….
Installation
More details are available on the individual review pages MobileSpy, Neo-Call, Flexispy – but some highlights are worth mentioning here. For MobileSpy the username and password you register on the website are the same that you enter into the target handphone – this is a serious security breach and another good reason why Mobile Spy cannot be regarded as a serious spyphone application. According to the Neo-Call website, installation of it’s software requires physical connection to a PC. Time and hassle, for sure. FlexiSPY is OTA over the air installed, but the target phone human has to accept it. (you can’t remotely install it without touching the phone).
Web Account
Please visit our iPhone Spy Phone review page for a good description of the FlexiSPY and MobileSpy web accounts.
Controlling spyphone software
In summary, there is no way to remotely control Mobile Spy, while FlexiSPY does offer remote control.
One important feature to have is contol over when the target phone sends reports back to the server. Mobile Spy allows reports to be spaced out up to three hours, but it doesn’t allow control of what time of day to upload to the online server, such as 4.00am, or once a day when the target phone probably isn’t being used.
Another important factor that should be considered is that Mobile Spy is sold with either a three, six or 12 month license and at the end of the license period the software must be removed from the target handphone. Failure to to remove the software at the end of the license period will result in an Invalid Login message displaying each time the software attempts to upload recorded events to the company’s online server. Oops.
Neo-Call talks on its webpage about controlling the functions of the target handphone using any Java equipped handphone as a monitor phone. Throughout its website though it makes reference to having to enter long and complex command sequences to send commands to the target handphone.
Support
MobileSpy support…. not good. FlexiSPY support…very good. Neo Call… if you can’t follow the website, what can you expect from support.
Conclusion
Mobile Spy offers decent value for a Symbian spy phone if all that is required is SMS/text messaging and voice call monitoring, and it doesn’t matter if the target knows the software is installed on their phone. FlexiSPY is a much better choice if you want more features, more choices, better support and need the installation to be undetectable.