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I've
always despised floppy disks and everything that they
stand for. They are flimsy, slow, big and have a tendency
towards destroying data, but up until recently have
been the only option for most data transportation.
Then along came my saviour, the USB Flash drive. They
brought convenient data transportation into a new
era with their speed, small size and cavernous capacity.
It's a very crowded marketplace these days so manufacturers
must do a great deal to differentiate themselves from
the pack. This means that attention to detail is vital.
Today
I have the pleasure of reviewing a 256mb USB 2.0 Flash
Drive produced by Super Talent Flash sent to me by
PC Toy Land. It uses a clear plastic casing so you
can see the electronic internals as well as an LED
to display drive activity.
Here's
the detailed specs:
My
Windows XP system detected the drive immediately upon
bootup, installed the required driver and then flashed
an ugly warning message at me. "High Speed USB
device plugged into low speed port". Feeling
a bit foolish at my surprise I remembered that my
Abit KX7-333 is getting a bit ancient. Feeling the
need for speed I headed off to the local computer
shop and picked up a trusty 5 port USB 2.0 PCI card
to provide a more accurate display of drive speeds.
 
 
The
drive itself is solidly built out of a hard, smooth
plastic that was resistant to my attempts to bend,
chip or otherwise damage it. I dropped it a couple
of times without any visible damage occurring so you
can be assured that your investment will survive regular
usage even if you happen to be careless.
Now as for the clear casing, I would have preferred
to see the PCB follow the same colour theme. A plain
green colour does not go well with the red-tinted
casing.
The USB connection connector is protected by a cap
that slides on and off easily. Unfortunately when
the cap is off it becomes immensely easy to lose because
there is no way to fasten it to the rest of the drive.
This problem is a distinct oversight because simply
making it clip onto the back of the drive or providing
a hole to loop string through would have solved it.
The drive is also difficult to grip well enough to
pull out of some poorly formed USB ports. The little
loop at the back of the drive is too small to clamp
onto properly and the plastic is too smooth to properly
grip even with the indentation for your thumb. A coarse
coating at the thumb area would have been appreciated.
You also have the option of attaching a piece of string
which will solve this issue.
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