Holiday Gift Reviews: FreeAgent DockStar

Before I actually begin this review there’s something that you need to know. I’m a bit of a technophobe. Now before “A” pipes in and says that I’m the most technologically savvy person she knows – let me break it down for you. I’m INTERNET savvy, but when it comes to installing software or hardware, I go into FREAK OUT mode, because I’m afraid that I’ll do SOMETHING wrong and obliterate everything on my computer.

I am also in the over 50 age group. So, software, hardware, etc. aren’t something that I was taught in school. The closest I ever came was taking a course in BASIC in college (and you DON’T want to know the grade I got).

Seagate sent me their newest innovation – The FreeAgent DockStar to test. I knew that this was going to be something that I’d use. I travel and being able to access my home computer files would be a godsend. BUT WHAT IF I INSTALLED IT INCORRECTLY AND ENDED UP WITH NO FILES LEFT TO ACCESS? I didn’t mention that to them, I wanted them to actually think that I knew what I was doing.

Holy Guacamole! Talk about an EASY installation. As instructed, I plugged the Dockstar into the electrical socket and simply plugged the network cable into my router (I picked an open spot – there was no right or wrong place). Then I put my FreeAgent2Go hard drive into the Dockstar and logged on to register my account.

THAT WAS IT. It was REALLY that easy.

Here’s what I was able to do with it. You may have read some posts here and on Champagne Living that I wrote while at the Blogger’s Brunch and FloTV event in NYC. I had brought my new little Netbook with me and of course ALL OF MY PHOTOS and files were on my home computer. I was able to access my files from New York (all the way to Florida) and download the files onto my netbook, making posting EASY.

You have NO IDEA how much easier life is now. I can be sitting in a café having a coffee and leisurely writing a review and at the same time access all of the videos and photos that I’ll be needing in order to post it.

I can even send files to my friends

The best part – there was no software for me to mess up.

The things that you can do with the FreeAgent Dockstar are nothing short of amazing. I can instantly access all of my movies, photos, music and files. If I want to post them to my facebook or myspace pages (or even twitter), I can even do that. You can even send photos from your iPhone to computer, insuring that you don’t lose that picture of cute little Adeline.

Now, Bro’ B (who does our Blu-Ray reviews) is my son. He’s about to go for his Master’s Degree and I got to thinking HOW GREAT this would be for any student. Imagine being able to access that paper that you forgot at home (or in his case since he’s a filmmaker – a video)? It would be as easy as going to the computer lab at school and accessing your home files.

No more – The Dog ate my homework. Because if it’s on your computer, you can access it from any computer!

OH and the FreeAgent DockStar is both PC and MAC friendly.

The Seagate FreeAgent DockStar is available directly from Seagate or other retailers like Amazon.com, etc. for UNDER $100 and comes with a year of service.

Now that I have the FreeAgent DockStar, I have NO IDEA how I lived without it….sort of like my cellphone.

Review by Broad “Z” – Zippy

I want to thank Seagate for providing me with a free FreeAgent Dockstar as well as a FreeAgent2Go in order to test for this review.