Six months after winning Macitynet.it’s “Best of Expo” at the 2009 Macworld Expo, the Newer Technology Voyager Q continues racking up the accolades, garnering high marks from Macworld UK, Electronista, T4 Show, and MacFormat, among others.
The latest in the Voyager Q love-fest comes from TestFreaks. Despite them coming from a decidedly PC focus, the Voyager Q’s qualities still shone through, firmly beating out their “control” drive dock in both speed and available features.
In fact, their only major quibble with the Voyager Q was the “high price” of the unit, comparing it to units with only SATA and USB connectivity because the reviewer “doesn’t use FireWire at all.” That’s kind of like saying a new HD Television set is too expensive because you only use it to watch old episodes of Barney Miller on VHS.
It should be noted that a chipset supporting eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 runs about $45-50 more than one that just supports eSATA and USB 2.0. This difference can be seen not only with the Voyager, but with just about any pair of identical enclosures/interfaces with the only difference being an eSATA/USB or a “Quad” interface.
Ironically enough, the Voyager S2 is also available. This model is just like the Voyager Q, except it just has eSATA and USB 2.0 support, but is also about $45 less than the Q. Those features that would have made it perfect for this review.
Whichever model you look at, though, the Voyager docks are high-quality units. Unfortunately, “price” and “value” mean the same thing in people’s minds all too often. The Voyager Q may not be the least expensive drive dock out there, but few (if any) of those other docks come with the “extras” that the Voyager comes with. Things like having all the connector cables included, knowing there’s a solid warranty in case something goes wrong, and unparalleled support also come into play. In other words, you get what you pay for.
That’s why the Voyager is still on top.
As a double check just to make sure nothing is changing in production, checked a early unit and a current unit. I’m able to suspend the Voyager base by the mini-USB cable while plugged in. So just not sure what was going on with yours…wish you had a better experience.
We’re sorry to hear of your experience Robert. While it doesn’t make your situation any better, in checking with our Technical Support department manager, we have not received any other reports of this since we began shipping Voyager in January.
Unfortunately, I am about to return the second of my Voyagers because they are not made very well. In both cases, the mini-USB plug dislodged itself from the back of the plastic frame. Not an encouraging development…..