Gadgetell Peep Show: Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini

Posted March 26, 2008 at 10:58 AM by Adam Fisher-Cox

Section: Peripherals, Storage, Features, Peep Shows

The Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini is an incredibly lightweight and small, portable USB 2.0 External Hard Drive. What follows are pictures of the unboxing and my initial thoughts on this product.

The un-openable blister-pack notwithstanding, the Maxtor is cleanly packaged, and carries only the essentials inside: Drive, Manual, and Cord. As you can see by looking at the comparison pictures below, the first comparing it to the trackpad on my MacBook Pro, and the second comparing it to the Airport Extreme, which is the same size as the Mac Mini, this is an incredibly portable hard drive. I could easily see myself taking this on trips to keep my Time Machine backups going.

The biggest con to the OneTouch Mini is the way it plugs in. The cord is split into two USB plugs, one for power, one for data transfer. This was a huge problem on my MacBook Pro, for two reasons. First of all, I only have two USB ports on my MacBook Pro, and second, they are on opposite sides of the computer. This is the case with many computers, and so I could easily see it being very annoying as there would be no more USB ports and a wire going around, across, or in front of your laptop.

Overall, at first glance I would have given the drive at least a 9 out of 10, but the USB cord thing really could be an issue. My first glance rating is a 7 out of 10. This would not be a good drive for someone who uses their computer on a desk most of the day, but it is superb for traveling folks.