As much as I love taking the latest phones, laptops, audio gear and smart wearables out for a spin each week, ever so often come along a bunch of accessories that can serve as perfect companions to your big-ticket tech purchases. Today, let’s take a look at the Samsung SSD T7 and the AMX XP 60 to see if these are the accessories you need to be springing for soon!
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a long-time user of the Samsung T series of external solid-state drives (SSD) for storing and organizing my photo and media libraries on the go, and the latest SSD T7 carries on the legacy that the legendary SSDs T3 and T5 established for Samsung in this space. Compared to the previous-gen T5, the T7 is thinner and longer, about the size of a credit card and weighing just 58 grams. It’s perfect to be taken anywhere, sitting in your shirt pocket or the smallest of bag pockets, so it’s just as well that the metal-cased body is sturdy enough to take the light drops and bumps, and there’s the backing of a 3-year warranty. No water or dust protection, though.
Take the dimunitive T7 out of the box and it’s pretty much ready to go – the drive comes pre-formatted with the exFAT standard, so it’s instantly compatible with PCs/Macs, iPads, mobile phones and TVs. Two cables – one USB Type-C to Type-C and one with a Type-A end – are included in the box for use with phones and older devices, and you have the companion software for PC/Mac/Android on the drive itself.
Now, whether you're using the T7 to back up large media files for work or just to carry along your data on the go like I do, one thing you can be assured of is snappy access to your files. For many folks, the added speed you get over your typical portable hard drive is worth the outlay in terms of sheer time saved. How fast, you ask? Samsung rates the drive's maximum read speed at up to 1,050MB/s and its maximum write speed at up to 1,000MB/s, though you’ll have to have a recent Mac or PC (or even the iPad Pro) to eke out the best possible speeds over the USB 3.2 Gen 2 port. I plugged it into a Mac and got nearly the same figures as claimed, and the bump up in speeds even from my already-speedy T5 was nearly twice as fast. That’s courtesy the faster NVMe type solid-state drive used.
The T7 arrives in 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB variants, plus there’s a previously launched and slightly pricier T7 Touch with an integrated fingerprint scanner (for the ultimate in portable storage security), but is it worth the money? That comes down to what you’re looking for in a backup drive – if its speed of access and consistent performance, without the moving parts inherent to hard drives, you cannot go wrong with the SSD T7. It’s likely an easier sell for professionals and prosumers.
Samsung Portable SSD T7
Rating: 8/10
Price: Rs 9,999(500GB), Rs 17,999(1TB) and Rs 29,999(2TB)
It’s the holy grail for that rapidly disappearing breed of people we used to know as frequent travelers – a charging solution that could handle all their devices at one go. The XP 60 4-port charger from India-based accessory brand AMX Labs does just that. The sturdily built travel adapter weighs about 150 grams and can significantly reduce the number of charging bricks you carry, but a lot depends on what devices you use.
For instance, it has one USB Type-C port with a maximum power output rating of 45W, so you can charge a Samsung Note 10+ (45W) or a MacBook Air (30W) (or any device supporting the USB-PD standard) just fine. That said, laptops with higher wattage, a 15-inch MacBook Pro, for example, will not charge at 45W.
In addition, the XP 60 has three older USB Type-A ports which can collectively drive an output of 17W, which allows the charger to pump out a total of 62W maximum at any given point. Plug in one device and the XP 60 directs all 17W of power to that device, plug in all three and it’ll split it evenly across all three ports. Charging a Redmi Note 9 Pro alongside a Note 10+ had both devices topping up at pretty much the same pace as if you were using their in-box chargers. What brings it home for the XP 60 is the rather compelling price at which it retails. An easy recommendation.
AMX XP 60
Rating: 9/10
Price: Rs 1,699
Tushar Kanwar is a tech columnist and commentator, and tweets @2shar