iRobot Roomba 880 review: This bot leaves the competition in the dust

The iRobot Roomba 880 is a new model for iRobot and the very first 800-series bot for the brand. At, it will replace the equally priced Roomba 790 that Katie Pilkington recently reviewed.

So what's different? At first glance, not a whole lot. But, flip the vacuum over and you'll see something entirely new: AeroForce technology. I'll go into that more later, but it's basically a design and feature upgrade that improves performance a lot.

Yes, I would recommend the Roomba 880 to anyone in the market for a luxury-priced robot vac. It performed better than the Roomba 790, and much better than the G Hom-Bot Square, as well as the Infinuvo CleanMate QQ5.

Overall, the 880 will be best for someone who appreciates gadgets and understands that a robot vacuum isn't designed to replace all other floor cleaning. It also isn't the best choice for someone only interested in vacuuming up pet hair. For that, Neato Robotics XV Signature Proholds steady in the lead.

Design
The 8.4-pound Roomba is a cute and capable robot vacuum. It has a height of 3.6 inches and a width of 13.9 inches. It's finished in black (unlike the 790's blue finish), and has a carrying handle so you can easily transport it.

Stylistically, the 880 doesn't stray too far from iRobot's existing design. It has the same rounded look, and that same large Clean/Power button in the middle. The company clearly wanted to maintain the Roomba's unassuming, minimalist design and sturdy construction.
The iRobot Roomba 790 (left) and the new iRobot Roomba 880Megan Wollerton/CNET

It comes with a removable dust bin with an easy-access release button, left and right side wheels, a removable caster wheel in the front, debris extractors, and a spinning side brush. Aside from the vacuum itself, you also get a Home Base, or dock, two Virtual Wall/Lighthouse sensors with four C batteries included, an extra HEPA filter, and a remote control with two AA batteries included.

Drobo 5Dt in-Depth Review

As our data needs grow, so will the need for faster, bigger and easier to configure storage systems. NAS (network attached storage) is one solution that has been around for quite some time, allowing users to store data over their LAN. However, for the more demanding user who does a lot of video editing or photoshop/3D rendering … a NAS device may not be the best solution. What they require is a DAS (direct attached storage) which is a large, super fast external storage, that they can use to edit the files directly. For that … you need SPEED, an external USB3.0 hard drives is just not capable of such a task.

Meet the DROBO 5DT (Turbo Editon). This unit is not a NAS as such, but actually a DAS (direct attached storage), which is just a external storage device. It features Thunderbolt 2 connectors and supports USB3.0. It’s perfect for users who want to store large files that they edit regularly. It features BeyondRAID technology which allows you mix and match drive brands, capacities and speeds. Excellent!

Here’s a little more about Drobo taken from their website …


Overview

Drobo makes award-winning data storage products for Small and Medium Businesses and Individual Professionals that provide an unprecedented combination of sophisticated data protection and management features, affordable capacity, and ease-of-use. With over 50 industry awards and hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide, Drobo has demonstrated success solving the three major storage challenges in one device – data protection, capacity adjustment, and application service-level optimization – through patented BeyondRAID™, Thin Provisioning / Reclamation, and the breakthrough Automated Data-Aware Tiering technology. WIRED Magazine recently named Drobo as one of The 10 Silicon Valley Companies You Wish You Worked for (or Started) so check out our job openings here. It’s not too late to join Drobo!



Innovative Storage Solutions

Unlike other storage options, Drobo lets users hot-swap drives, mix and match drives of different capacities, speeds, and types (SATA / SAS), and perform zero-support drive pack migration. This means that customers can optimize storage economies without worrying about drive order, data loss, downtime, or compatibility. They can swap in drives as needed, while the Drobo is running.



In terms of read/write speed, I’m expecting the Drobo 5Dt, with it’s built-in 128GB mSATA SSD, to give us very good results.