The Western Digital My Passport Slim

The Western Digital My Passport Slim is the latest external hard drive in a long line of impressive drives from Western Digital. External drives such as the Western Digital My Passport Studio and Western Digital My Passport Essential have impressed us in the past with solid build quality, good portability and fast data transfer rates. The Western Digital My Passport Slim is in good company then, but how does it compare?

The first thing to note about the Western Digital My Passport Slim is that it's remarkably small and light – much smaller than the Western Digital My Passport Essential or the Freecom Mobile Drive Sq TV, and about the same size as the compact Toshiba Stor.E Canvio. It's actually not much larger than an internal 2.5-inch laptop hard drive, with just a slim shell offering protection against knocks and drops.

A frequent criticism of small external hard drives, which we pointed out in our Stor.E Canvio review, is that manufacturers often sacrifice protection in the pursuit of making the smallest body possible. Thankfully the Western Digital My Passport Slim doesn't suffer from this, with a metal enclosure and cobalt casing around the sides that keeps the drive safe. Even with this added protection, the Western Digital My Passport Slim remains light and easy to carry, and the metal case even looks pretty stylish.

As with other Western Digital external hard drives, a number of apps are included on the hard drive to help you quickly back up your files, along with tools for configuring the drive and checking on its health. There is also an app called WD Security which allows you to password-protect the entire drive. This app is clear and easy to use, taking you step-by-step through the process of securing your data, whilst warning you about the consequences of losing the password once it is applied to the hard drive.

The Western Digital My Passport Slim is USB 3.0, which means we expected high speeds when transferring data to and from the disk. The 120.9MB/s read and 120.8 MB/s write speeds don't disappoint, and are much higher than the 80.57MB/s and 80.5MB/s respective speeds of the older My Passport Essential. In a real world test a 1GB file transfers in just 10 seconds.

Overall the Western Digital My Passport Slim is a very impressive portable hard drive. It manages to combine a light and easy-to-carry design with a robust shell that protects it from damage when you're out and about. The selection of software included with the drive is simple to use, yet still useful, and the transfer rates over USB 3.0 are very good. It is one of the more expensive external hard drives out there, but with large 1TB and 2TB capacities, along with the excellent transfer speeds, we believe the price is more or less justified.

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Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite

Features:

• Decent trackpad
• Spacious keyboard
• Good battery life
• Portable
• Poor screen
• Plasticky build
• Rebranded processor
• Below entry-level speeds
• Fiddly connectivity

Introduction

The Samsung Series 9 has long been the jewel in the Korean company's crown, and has set the standard for thin and light laptops for the last two years.

The Series 9 was in effect the world's first Ultrabook (although Samsung never let Intel officially share its pride and joy), and was the first Windows laptop to truly rival the MacBook Air in terms of performance and looks.

Of course, the Series 9 also had a MacBook sized price-tag, so enter the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite, Samsung's vanguard laptop for those on a budget. However, in this instance, 'Lite' doesn't refer to weight, but to features and design (though thankfully also price).

The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite is available for £499, which is under half the cost of its big brother, the Samsung ATIV Book 9. On the face of it, that's an excellent price for a 13.3-inch touchscreen Windows 8 laptop, and you're unlikely to find a big-brand machine for less.

But it's immediately clear from the design that some corners have been cut to keep prices down, and while the lid has the brushed metal effect synonymous with the Series 9 brand, this one's unashamedly plastic. Our version came in a deep, shiny black that manages to look appealing rather than blandly corporate.

The lid on the Book 9 is unashamedly plastic

Open the laptop and you can't fail to miss the sheer thickness of the touchscreen panel. It's relatively weighty, which is something top-of-the-range Windows 8 touchscreen laptops such as the Sony VAIO Pro 13 (£999) manage to avoid. The chassis comprises keyboard, trackpad and ports, yet it's still wafer-thin like the original Series 9, making the laptop as a whole look rather odd.

The touchscreen panel is pretty thick

The touchscreen panel's extra bulk pushes up the weight of the ATIV Book 9 Lite to 1.6kg. It's not especially heavy, and the £500 saving on a full-blooded ultra-portable only adds around 300g in weight, which is a compromise most people will be happy to make.

The Book 9 Lite isn't heavy by any means

It's still slim enough to slip into a bag and carry around, and the upshot of the plastic lid is its resilience against scratches, something the aluminium Series 9 doesn't share.

So, on the surface we have a portable and slender laptop at a great price, and one that will suit anyone whose eyes water at the price tags of modern ultra-portables. But can it deliver in terms of performance, or have too many sacrifices been made under the hood? Read on to find out.

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