A few weeks ago, I looked at a Kingston Mobilelite Wireless Reader. Today I will be reviewing a not too dissimilar item but one more designed for use at home; the Akasa DuoDock X Wi-Fi which is a wireless enabled USB3 hard drive docking station.
Akasa are a big company who have a wide area of product expertise, ranging from cases to cables and enclosures to coolers. Generally their products are of extremely good quality.
Specifications
Apart from the wireless features, and associated software, the DuoDock can also function as a normal hard drive dock allowing you to connect your spare desktop or laptop drives to a PC to use for external storage.
Dimensions | 94.5 x 140 x 72 mm |
HDD Interface | SATA (Support 2.5” and 3.5”) |
Wifi Interface | 802.11 b/g/n |
HDD Capacity Supported | Up To 3TB |
HDD Formats Supported | NTFS/FAT/ExFAT |
Wireless Security Supported | WEP, WPA-PSK (TKIP/AES), and WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES) |
Operation Range | 30 Metres |
Max Simulataneous User Support | Up to 3 Users |
iOS File Support | Video: h.264, .mov, .mp4, .mpv, .3gp, .m4v Photo: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .tif, .bmp, .tiff Audio: AAC, MP3, M4A, AIF, WAV Document: MS Office 97 or higher, .pdf, .rtf Support “Open In” & AirPlay Function |
Android File Support | Video: h.264, .mp4, .3gp, MPEG-TS, .mkv Photo: .jpg, .png, .gif, .bmp, .webp Audio: AAC, MP3, .ota, .imy, .ogg, .rtttl, .rtx, .wav |
External Connections | USB 3.0 |
Max data Rate | 5Gb/s (USB 3.0) 480Mb/s (USB 2.0) |
Power Requirement | +12V DC |
Supported OS’ | Windows XP/Vista/7/8 Mac OS X 10.3 and higher iPhone / iPad iOS 4.0 and higher Android Phone OS V2.1 and higher Android Tablet V3.0 and higher |
The Packaging and the Product
So now we know the full specs - of which there were a lot - we can go onto the dock itself. Akasa’s packaging for the dock is very functional, and shows the product and its features very well.
As you can see from the image, the box makes all the information of the dock easily visible and lists the full specification on the rear in multiple languages, meaning that Akasa just need to print one box for everywhere they expect to sell the DuoDock.
Going inside the box from the top, there is a smaller box that contains a multi plug – in our box it came with an EU and UK changeable plug - a foldout installation guide and a USB 3.0 Cable. Below this is the dock itself, which is kept secure by two pieces of packing foam which cover either end.
The Dock itself has a matte black finish and has a clear Perspex base; this is to allow for the blue LED to shine through. The dock features a button release which allows for any fitted drive to be removed without lifting the whole device and the power switch on the top also has a nice clunk to it.
On the rear of the dock is where the USB 3.0 cable and the power cable attach and on the same plate there is a button to reset the settings of the dock and a button which can disable the LED – a feature which is something sorely missed on lots of items – for me some items have LEDs that are often far too bright.
The Software
The dock does not come with any software discs; for installation you need to connect to the dock via wireless, by selecting “Akasa Air” from the list of connections, then navigating to the IP address that is written on the included paperwork.
Once connected and the page loaded you are presented with the control page, which has several sections allowing you to configure the various settings of the DuoDock. Under the Wi-Fi page there is an option which, much like the Kingston Mobilelite reader, allows you to connect the dock to a wireless router so you can still browse the net whilst connected to it.
The Windows software that you download from the control page is very basic; it scans the network for the DuoDock and then loads a window so you can navigate the docks files. Once the drive has been found and fully configured you can also map the dock as a network hard drive (this makes the drive show up in My Computer).
Each mobile platform has their own application and both function similarly to the Kingston Mobillite Reader in that they are able to filter files such as videos, music and pictures; you can also copy files from your device to the DuoDock and vice versa.
The Videos below show the basic usage of the applications, so I won’t go too much further into them here.