"The Zip 250 is still the most portable... However, the Zip 750 is the latest and, in all other tests, the greatest of any new Zip drive in 2003. Any single-computer home or office should have no complaints."

---from the review

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Sidebar :

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The metal chassis. People who are sticklers for the possibility of static discharge will tell you how dangerous it is, for the Zip 750 to have an actual metal chassis surrounding the drive. You may have even read a review where the critic tried to use the drive and touched it, causing a static shock that, while hardly painful, effectively confused his PC from being able to use the Zip 750 at all, until he did a thorough restart.

Why not include such an anecdote in the actual review? Because in my opinion static shock is a thing to avoid in ANY computer environment. Seriously; if you have wool of any kind within 100 miles of your computer room, you're a glutton for punishment. That said: I don't see a problem with the Zip 750 having a metal chassis, in the best computer desktops. I had a metal tower surrounding my desktop PC for years and never encountered a static discharge. It's really only a matter of computer safety. 

Iomega has been the sole surviving force of the floppy disk world. While the first, 100MB Zip drives were slow, they offered 100 Megs per disk, and easily connected as a pass-through to the printer's parallel port, making them universally accepted with all PCs. The Iomega legacy began from there. Since then, improvements have been made in size (250MB in particular), interface (first SCSI, then USB, then firewire), and even power consumption (the USB Zip 250 is powered directly from the USB cable; no power cords!). In short; if you wanted a removable storage solution, Zip has been the way to go, for almost a decade.

The latest in the Zip line is the Zip 750. While by logic this is three times the storage space than the Zip 250, it is also more competitive with CD-RW drives, which can store around 650 MB of data, are offered for free on most new PCs. Due to speed and performance, however, CDs have never been considered as good as a Zip drive, though they did have a larger storage capacity, compared to 250MB Zip disks. The Zip 750 corrects this limitation, though is it truly better than the Zip 250?

As always, let's start with the best trait of a Zip drive: downward compatibility. If you invested in a Zip 100 or 250, the 750 will read your old 250 and 100 disks, making transfer of all your old data a piece of cake. However, to people who would like to trade data with their friends who have 250 and 100 drives, take heed: the 750 will write much slower  to a 250 disk, and will not write at all to a Zip 100 disk (at least it wouldn't for us, in repeated attempts). It will read old Zip disks, though, so it's not like your old data is "lost." It should be more than safe to throw away your old Zip drive for the new one. Sort of.

"Sort of"...? Well, here's the problem I have with the Zip 750. On the surface, for single-computer households, this is a great drive; it connects easily, stores 3/4 of a Gigabyte per disk, and is easy to use. However, much like older Zip drives, it requires a power cord connection. This removes the best trait of the Zip 250, which was powered directly from the USB cable, and therefore required only a single cable connection, directly to your PC. You could use the Zip 250 on a plane, or even the beach (!), with power delivered directly from your laptop. This isn't the case with the Zip750, which again, needs to be plugged in, like every other external product. Bummer.

Aside from the need for an available power plug, however, connecting the Zip drive to your PC should not be a problem. There are different Zip 750's for every computer connection type under the sun (which you can order via the following links): the external USB version, the ATAPI external version, the ATAPI internal version, and the Firewire external version. Of course, compatibility is the primary concern, but if you are judging your choice on speed alone, nothing beats Firewire (yet), so go with that option if you can, for both PCs and Macintosh computers. Older Macintoshes (like the original, 1999 iMac) can easily connect to the USB version, as can older PCs, with ATAPI a third option if you need it. Newer computers should aim for Firewire most of all, though.

For the newbie to Zip drives, a paragraph must also be offered about the economy of the purchase. People settling for their "it came free with the computer" CD-R drive, should note that while a pack 100 CD-R discs can be bought at a discount store for about $39.95, even a 3-pack of 750MB Zip disks costs around $34.95, in the same store. A single disk...? That costs around $15 bucks (FYI: these are estimates as of this review's posting. You can check the current price and availability of 750MB Zip disks, by clicking here for a single pack, and here for the three-pack). To anyone who's used both CD-R and zip, however, this added price is predictable and quite frankly, expected. You get what you pay for.

So, what have we learned? Well, actually, it's a question of what you should already know. One, nothing beats a Zip disk, since even the best CD-RW disc cannot pretend to be a disk drive. On the other hand, is Zip 750 the best available? The Zip 250 is still the most portable, so if you want to connect to a laptop on an airplane, or have simply one USB cable to worry about when sharing a Zip drive among 2 or more computers: nothing beats the Zip 250. However, the Zip 750 is the latest and, in all other tests, the greatest of any new Zip drive in 2003. Any single-computer home or office should have no complaints.