ADATA DashDrive Air AE800 500GB Review

Introduction

Since the first time that I had a wireless hard drive in for review, I had a mixed set of feelings with the concept and the functionality of the devices, though as of late, there have been a large number of improvements seen across the board with better performance, longer battery life and most of all a mobile application that works as it should do. With most of these teething troubles having been taken care of, I have a more welcome feeling on the technology and I can now see it in a better light as to how they can improve our mobile lives. To top this revised emotion, the pricing side of things has also settled down and as a result vendors are now able to introduce products with more features including the importance of having greater storage capacities. We now have a range of devices out there that can cater for a wide variety of needs and budgets.

The AE800 is not the first wireless storage product to roll of the ADATA production line and in the early part of last year I took a look at the AE400 wireless card reader and power bank, which gave users the flexibility to insert an SD card of their own choosing to either share photos or provide a small amount of sharable storage for a number of mobile devices such as tablets and phones. The bottom line from that review was that ADATA’s first attempt at wireless storage impressed me, with a unit that was easy to use, compact and good-looking. Granted that the mobile app needed a little bit of polishing off around the edges, but it worked all the same and did what it needed to. Since then the app has seen a few changes and the end result is a more reliable and functional area through which you can wirelessly connect to a compatible drive.

The AE800 that I’m taking a look at today pulls a number of features from the AE400 although the obvious difference here is with the storage medium. Where the AE400 was flexible in its storage capacity and connectivity, with the option for both USB drives and SD cards to be connected to the unit and then shared out, the AE800 only has the option to share out its own integral storage. Inside the black, sleek-looking chassis is a 500GB 5400rpm drive courtesy of Western Digital and to power it whilst on the go, a larger capacity 5200mAh battery is on hand. Like the AE400, the AE800 still has the option to charge a mobile device such as a smartphone with the capacity there to charge you phone from flat to full twice (depending on the battery capacity of your handset).

Although the AE800 is designed for use whilst out and about, there is still a native USB3.0 port included as part of the specification, allowing the drive to be connected to a desktop or laptop system in a more traditional manner to copy media and other files to and from the drive ready for use on the go; whether it be for business use, or for sharing of video content to the kids tablets in the back of the card on a long journey.

Alongside the hard drive we get a typical quick start guide to show how the unit is turned on and how you get connected to your mobile device. Alongside this is a USB3.0 cable and a mains power adaptor. Our sample here has a European tipped adaptor, however a plug for your region will be included should you choose to buy this unit.