We now live in a world where we have more than one electronic device, this obviously means that you’re going to have tons of files from different devices, be it personal, work related or a lot of stuff you’ve accumulated over the months ( I’m guilty of the last one ) As someone who carries his data with him, I find myself taking a lot of pictures to be edited later especially when on travel. I’m at a risk putting most of it in my laptop and there’s a real chance of data loss, and when on travel, there’s no options to back it up unless you have the cloud and good internet. Not just storage, even streaming content for that matter is severely limited. The Asus Travelair N is precisely for people who face this kind of problem, a wireless hard drive solution that’s secure, portable and doesn’t need the comfort of a PC or stable internet connection.
Design
It’s not light but it packs a punch. Bigger than your average 2.5″ sized drives, the Travelair N has an iconic design. It has a shiny finish with a hypnotic swirl, and embossed with the chrome Asus Logo. As you can see from my pictures, it’s not easy to keep it clean.
There’s black plastic on the underside and on the right hand side comes with the power button and LED indicators. The SD card slot is on the left and the usb port is on the bottom which are all covered by flaps. The USB cable is supplied from the box.
Performance
The Travelair comes with a mammoth 1 TB of internal storage that can be expanded with additional memory with an SD card. Ideally this works when you have a DSLR that runs on an SD card and want to transfer data quickly. Using its Wi-Fi network you can transfer files to and from it. It’s got NFC too so a simple tap on the phone, will take you to the app store to download the asus app for the drive. You can connect five devices to the drive. It can also be used as a NAS drive for streaming media to smart TVs and a USB 3.0 port for wired faster transfers.
It will work like a normal drive when you plug it to the PC. Using it other devices involve downloading the AiDrive app which sorts your photos, video, music and other files and the app allows you to copy objects between the drive and will back up your data should you wish. While you can connect to it wirelessly without a password by default, you can also enable WPA2 security, or change the SSID or disable the SSID entirely as an added layer of protection so only you’ll see your drive when you want to connect to it. It streams remarkably well too.
The battery runs the drive for 8 hours on a single charge and that’s pretty solid. Construction though is a different story, the flaps do feel a bit flimsy and it can be inconvenient to rest it flat when the SD card slot is opened. However it’s water resistant so it could take a few splashes of accidental water spillage.
Verdict
You can pick up the Travelair N for around AED 564 at desertcart.ae For that price you’re getting a solid drive that has wirless and NFC capabilities that let you use it in sync with most of your devices on all platforms. It is a bit bulkier than most drives that come at that price range but you’re paying for functionality with portability so that’s a bit of a bargain you make. Is it the ideal drive for the traveller? Well I think the clue’s in the name.
