As has been discussed (in
numerous threads
), there are many decent backup apps.
The challenge is the Android platform design, where every app runs in its own environment that's very restricted from accessing the others'. This can be a good thing, but is an obstacle for system-wide search and backup operations -- so most of the effective backup tools require your phone to be rooted.
Nandroid
This comes as part of a custom recovery image made by a user named Drakaz. To use this, you need to reboot your phone into recovery mode, and you can save/restore a complete image that you can then save on your pc. The image includes apps, messages, system settings, everything. The downside is that you can't make a partial restore, it's all or nothing.
Titanium Backup
This one is rather new and has been getting a bit of press here lately. It can do a selective backup of all your apps and their data, and you can restore them individually. The downside is that a full restore requires you to go through the normal installation routine for every app in sequence, which can tie up quite a bit of time.
ASTRO
ASTRO is a file manager that also includes a couple of system tools: a process manager, an disk space monitor, and an application backup tool. The latter has a nice batch-restore mode, but AFAIK does not include your app settings and data.
So look around for the others not mentioned here, and take your pick.
Also,
welcome to the forum!