CONCLUSION

   As you can all tell from our charts the Seagate Seven is far from the fastest 2.5" portable hard drive in the market something which we did actually expect (and mentioned it earlier) as soon as we saw that beneath the hood there was an 5400RPM/16MB, 5mm thick hard disk drive. Still what it lacks in performance it makes up in build quality since simply put it's superb although i need to point out that unless you're wearing gloves the enclosure will get filled with your prints very quickly. Of course the Seven has no real competition in the market in terms of design and size (thickness) so in the end i guess we just can't have it all at least not until Seagate places an SSD inside the Seven (or a smaller version of the Seven).

   The way i see it the Seagate Seven has but a single serious drawback, its cost since currently it retails for USD99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 129.30Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) a price tag which places it in the same vicinity as several 2TB models. Personally i can forgive Seagate for this (largely thanks to companies like Apple) since i do realize that performance may come second or even third after design and quality but for the majority of consumers out there the choice between a 2.5" 500GB and a 2.5" 2TB drive for around the same price is clear. With this out of the way however if you want to have one of the most elegant and superior built 2.5" portable hard drives as we speak then the Seven by Seagate is the way to go and for that it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Superior Build Quality
- Design/Size (7mm thick)
- Steel Enclosure
- Inaudible
- Low Power Consumption
- Temperatures
- Seagate Dashboard Software
- 3 Years Warranty

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Performance Levels
- Only Available In 500GB