3C Toolbox is an Android app for those curious about what’s going on underneath all of the fancy settings and icons. It’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s not for the everyday user. Instead, it’s a rough and ready compilation of all the most common system tools, monitors and info you’d ever want to troubleshoot something or get the absolute best out of your device. 3C Toolbox combines the following tools into one app (among others); Battery Monitor Widget, System Tuner, 3C Toggles. 3C Toolbox allows users to monitor and change their CPU settings, keep a close eye on their network and battery, manage installed apps, see installed system apps and libraries a well as a whole lot more. Simply put, 3C Toolbox is the Swiss Army knife of Android utilities.
There are two versions of 3C Toolbox, a free ad-supported version as well as a paid pro version. The pro version also has a number of features that you won’t get in the free version. When you’ve downloaded either of them and launched the app, a release notes viewer will greet you. This might not be exciting, but it’s also reassuring to know that an Android app is constantly being updated.
Now, I found the main menu of 3C Toolbox to be a little cluttered, but that’s probably down to the nature of the app, there’s so much information on display at any one time that it can be difficult to squeeze it all on.
No matter though, because you can easily switch to a 6 x 4 UI grid with simple and easily-read icons to lead you to each feature.
You’ll notice that we’re using a mix of different themes here, and this is because 3C Toolbox comes with a number of different settings you can change in order to tweak the overall look and feel.
You can manually go ahead and change the overall interface color, for instance:
You can also change how the font look, too.
Right away you get some idea of how much stuff there is packed into 3C Toolbox, it’s absolutely bursting at the seems with neat utilities and features. For instance, one of the more popular things to do on a device is to mess around with the CPU, 3C Toolbox has an in-depth monitor here.
This is the sort of thing that those troubleshooting a new ROM or Kernel will love, and it can also show you how much time your phone spends at different frequencies.
And of course, you can mess around with the CPU governor and other such timings.
This is of course just one part of the 3C Toolbox, and you can go on to do even more here, with the help of a System Manager for instance, which shows you key aspects of your device’s Android build and installed libraries.
Another popular area where people want to change things or keep an eye on what’s going on is with their battery, and again 3C Toolbox has all the needed battery tools here.
There’s also a file manager here, too:
The utilities and tools in 3C Toolbox just keep on coming, with an app manager as well:
And as if that weren’t enough, there’s a myriad of widgets so you can keep an eye on things on your homescreen.
3C Toolbox is not going to be an app for everyone, as this is designed for those looking to get the most out of their device, and really designed for those that love tweaking things.. For rooted users, they can get even more out of 3C Toolbox, and if you’re fed up of having all of these different, disparate apps installed on your device, this is great way of moving them all into one app. These aren’t just small snippets of features, either. Each one of the main features here is fully realised and it works just as say, SetCPU would for CPU management or a bespoke Kernel app for specific timings and memory management. A very, very impressive collection of everything a ROM fan or developer would need on a device, the only real room for improvement is in the interface, which can feel a little cluttered, but then again there’s a lot of info on offer. Having said that, the real value here is in all those different tools and this delivers in droves.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – Everything in 3C Toolbox runs nice and quickly, and there’s very little to get in the way of swapping from utility-to-utility.
- Features (5/5) – It has to be full marks here, there’s just so much on offer that everything you could want from such an app. It’s great for those with root access as well as those without it, too.
- Theme (3.5/5) – This is the only part of the app that could do with some improvement, as there’s a lot going on so things can get a little cluttered, but there are a lot of settings users can customize to their own look.
- Overall (4/5) – With every sort of feature or app you could want to troubleshoot a new ROM, your network, your battery life or performance 3C Toolbox has it all.
Pros
- Works well on tablets, making better use of the extra screen sizes.
- Has all of the major bases, as well as everything else covered for ROM users and troubleshooting all under one roof.
- Lots of different widgets makes keeping an eye on things nice and simple, without even having to launch the app.
- Great value for money, instead of buying multiple apps, you only need to buy and download just one.
Cons
- User interface could do with some tidying up, but there are a lot of settings available to change.
- System and app manager views can get a little cluttered.
3C Toolbox is one hell of an app that has everything that you could ever want included, right there and then, and it’s well worth taking a look at. It could do with a little more polish in the UI stakes, but there a lot of settings that users can change, and for an app with everything you could want to tweak a new ROM or Kernel with, this has it all and then some.