Samsung Kies is Samsung's official tool for Android based devices which allows you to manage music and videos. If you have both a PC and a Samsung mobile device, it's an essential application.

What it does

Samsung Kies also allows you to receive and install Firmware updates for your Samsung mobile and is regularly updated to be compatible with the latest Samsung mobile releases. In addition, Samsung Kies also works for transferring and managing contacts and calendar events between your mobile device and Mac.

If you're a Microsoft Office user, Samsung Kies also allows you to synchronize your Microsoft Outlook content on your computer with a Samsung mobile device. It's also very useful as a backup solution because it can backup data localized data on mobile device including bookmarks, settings (such as general settings, Wi-Fi lists) alarms, contacts, music, videos, or photos. Note that it does not backup DRM protected multimedia.

Buggy

While it's full of features, Samsung Kies can be unreliable. It sometimes fails to detect connected Samsung devices, can be difficult to sync and can be extremely slow.

Quality

Samsung Kies feels like a work in progress. It does not make managing your phone's content as easy as Apple do with iTunes.

Conclusion

Samsung Kies is an essential tool for any PC user with Samsung Android devices, but is pretty flawed.