Belkin USB Flash Drive

Author : Shawn Sparks Date : 7th October 2002

...Product	16 Meg USB Flash Drive
...Manufacturer	Belkin
...Supplier	Belkin
...Price	$59.95

 

 

 

3DVelocity would like to thank Belkin, especially Melody, for providing this sample for review.

One of the most useful gadgets to be released recently has to be USB Flash Drives. These nifty little devices offer more flexibility for data sharing than many other formats. They offer more space than floppy disks, more versatility than ZIP, JAZ or CDRW, and more convenience than web-based storage. These pocket-sized wonders can hold anywhere from 16MB to 128Megs of data of any type, have a retention span of 10years, or 1,000,000 erase cycles (whichever comes first) and are hot-swappable. Data can be written or read as easily as a floppy or HD, just drag and drop.

Today I will be looking at Belkin's 16MB USB Flash Drive.

The USB Flash Drive from Belkin comes in a clear plastic package, as you can see; the drive is about the size of a pack of gum.

Inside you will find:

The drive itself
1 USB Extention cable (about 3 ½ feet long)
1 Lanyard
1 Driver diskette
1 Instruction manual

The drive itself is compact, measuring only 77mm x 25mm x 9mm, the USB Flash Drive is about the size of a pack of chewing gum, although far more useful to the average person. The casing is silver plastic, and I am sorry to report that it feels a bit chintzy or, flimsy if you will. I have reviewed many of Belkin's products and have always found them of high quality, feeling solidly constructed, however, I fear that the casing on this is going to crack long before the 10year data retention life, possibly even before the 3 year warranty period. I would have expected ABS or something a little stronger than the material used. Another minor gripe is that the pocket clip is integrated in to the cap rather than the body of the drive. This may seem like a rather churlish point to pick on but if you hang it on the outside of a shallow pocket or on a clipboard etc. and the two part company, guess which bit you'll be left carrying around with you and which bit will get trampled or lost.

There is a red LED on the end of the drive to indicate the state of the drive through detection, writing and reading. On the side, there is also a write protection switch to help prevent accidental data loss by overwriting important files.

USB connectivity is what it's all about...

I am anxious to plug it in and check it out...

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