Labs

We were unconvinced by the orange and brown livery of Seagate's towering desktop drive, but for the miniature version the company has toned things down. It's still brown, but the orange glow is restricted to the front of the unit and its simple low-profile shape is far easier to like.

It was also good to see the FreeAgent Go distinguish itself in our tests with fast performance on a par with the Maxtor- although it's no surprise, perhaps, since Maxtor is now owned by Seagate. In light ofits

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performance, its low cost per gigabytelooks rather attractive.

The similarities between the FreeAgent Go and the Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini don't end with performance. Both have only a single mini-USB connector (although the FreeAgent Go's is more conventionally located at the back), and both come only in sizes up to 160GB, which rules them out if you're looking for maximum capacity.

Yet while the Go has much in common with the OneTouch, we can't quite let it share the crown. The unit is physically larger than the Maxtor and slightly heavier, which inevitably make it that little bit less portable. Like its full-sized brother, it indicates file activity with a gently pulsing light, while we prefer the unambiguous flickering of the Maxtor and most other drives. And, most conspicuously, the FreeAgent Go doesn't have anything to compare with Maxtor's button, although it does come with synchronisation software.

So, while Seagate has produced a perfectly good miniature hard disk, the Maxtor is a more obvious choice this month unless you like the FreeAgent Go's quirky looks.