****Integral I-pen 8GB Flash memory stick****

The Integral Ipen is an 8GB capacity flash memory stick for storing files, documents and computer media. I was reasonably pleased with my Integral I-pen as the 8GB of storage at the time was good and it was simple to use, but due to some of the plastic casing breaking and the fact it is overpriced and hard to find in the UK now, I no longer use the device.

Appearance
The I-pen is small and compact in my opinion and has quite an unusual and stylish design. The product was advertised on the back of the packaging as weighing just 9grams which is pretty light. The product is completely white in colour and has an outer casing made from plastic. There are some contoured edges to the side of the memory stick and the removable lid is shaped somewhat like the edge of an egg. In the centre of the product is a company logo reading "Integral" in bold print. Near the top of the product is a LED light which flashes when you open, load or save files to your computer. The product comes with a thin metal key chain, which consists of a clip which fastens onto the top of the memory stick, 5 small rings and finally a larger ring which functions as a key chain and allowed it to attach to my keys.

Features
The I-pen I bought was 8GB in size, but the entire range has sizes ranging from 512MB to 8GB in size so you can pick whichever one suits your needs but I find today, most people should aim for 4GB+ as the rest are a bit too small. The product was relatively fast to copy and save things onto as it featured a high speed 2 USB data connection which is a lot faster than the older USB speed 1 memory sticks. My laptop is a windows Vista and the product worked fine here without needing any software or additional driver updates. The instruction manual that came with the memory stick said it can support Apple 8.6 or later, can support Notebooks and can support Windows computers from 98SE and onwards. There is also some small print about how you might need to install a driver on the 98SE platform.

Ease of Use
The I-pen was very simple to use, you just basically plug the USB end of the product into a USB slot on your computer, wait a few seconds, and the product loads up with a menu of different things you can do. I just used to simply drag files into the memory stick shortcut accessed via "my computer" or in the case of saving documents, I would just click "Save as" and save the said file onto my I-pen. Again, very simple to use and a memory stick which gave me no problems in needing to install additional software and so forth.

Pricing
The 8GB I-pen was hard to buy in the UK and was not available on Amazon or play when I bought mine about a year or two ago. I paid £9.99 for the product with a £1.99 delivery charge on Ebay UK. You can buy cheaper memory sticks with much better storage capacity as a quick return of the Amazon UK search bar would show you. I have used many memory sticks over the past few years and I bought a more durable Kingston Generation 3 USB memory stick at 16GB for only £11.14 on Amazon so the I-pen is overpriced in my opinion and I wouldn't pay that much again.

Durability
In terms of software durability, provided you safe the file correctly, I never experienced any corruption of files in the time I used my I-pen. I used to play it safe and wait for the flashing LED to stop and remove the memory stick safely with the settings from "my computer". The physical durability of the product however was a little suspect. I used the device for around 7 months and the keychain broke, the casing to the main body came a little loose and the egg shaped lid does not fit as securely now as when I first bought it.

Drawbacks
There are a few drawbacks to my I-pen 8GB. The first was that there was no password protection feature to stop unwanted access to your files. The second would be the price and limited availability of the product at £9.99 for 8GB of storage capacity. Finally, I wasn't best pleased with the low quality plastic casing and metal keychain to the back, I think it was cheaply made and definitely not durable in the long run as I found out with most things breaking off and coming away over the space of 7 months.

Conclusion
My Integral I-pen 8GB was a reasonable investment at the time as I liked the 8GB of storage, the easy user interface and the wide range of platforms and versions the product can be used on. The white design was quite nice and the device compact and light at just 9 grams. I was never too keen on the egg shaped lid however and the plastic casing was of a poor quality. I would probably not recommend the I-pen as there are cheaper and more durable memory sticks on the market such as my 16GB Kingston generation 3 memory stick which I recommend highly. Thanks for reading my review.

© Revo9 (2011)
*Note, I am both a member of Ciao and Dooyoo.co.uk under the same username of Revo9*