Your travelling companion for when you need to take work home with you... (Kingston DataTraveler U3 Smart USB Flash drive 1 GB)

Member Name: Morgenhund

Product:	Kingston DataTraveler U3 Smart USB Flash drive 1 GB
Date:	17/12/06 (654 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: reliable, well-designed, fast

Disadvantages: none

Having been using a Kingston 128Mb USB memory stick for the last couple of years, leaving it in the office lead me to have to pick another memory stick up at the station on the way to a conference - fortunately Wien Westbahnhof had a Libro selling Memory Sticks, and whilst the 1Gb DataTraveler memory stick cost EUR 24.99 - approx. GBP 17, which was more than I could have purchased it for had I not had to buy it from a retailer where convenience was the most important consideration, I didn't object to paying a couple of Euro extra for the stick.

My previous Kingston memory stick was in anthracite, with grey plastic styling on it and a blue LED which flashes to indicate that data transfer is occurring. This time round I had no option but to go for a white memory stick (convenience rather than choice!). The important thing was that the lanyard to affix it to a keyring, which was a useful extra (so I can attach it to my house keys - that way I'll not leave the office without them, as has happened before!), attached to the USB stick rather than the cover for the USB adapter.

I saw an identically priced competitor product in the shop with identical specs that sadly had the key ring attachment hole on the cap for the USB connection - which realistically rules it out for use on a key ring. Of course if you have a heavy bundle of keys, I would advise against connecting them to the USB stick as the weight of the key ring might, in the long term, cause damage to be sustained to the USB port. You can attach the cap to the other end of the stick to ensure that you don't lose it when you plug the flash drive in.

The USB stick is packed in a blister pack with a card which contains information about how to access the FAQs for the product (should you really need to!) which can be done over the Internet - no excess packing and instructions here. The stick is intended for use with USB 2.0 but has backwards compatibility with USB 1.1 - it is listed as "USB 2.0 compliant and USB 1.1 compatible".

It is compatible with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, Mac OS 10.x and above and with version 2.4 of the Linux kernel. Sadly for older operating systems (Win NT, Win98SE, Win 95 and Win ME) there would appear to be no compatibility - although I have not been able to test the stick on these OSes, and have had to take the manufacturer's word for it (there is a compatibility table on the card inlay.

Whilst a USB stick is not intended to be used as a hard drive for viewing .mpg movie clips or listening to mp3 files I did test it by storing a 250Mb movie file on it and then seeing whether I could watch it on in Windows Media Player - I could, although I would not do this all the time. It took about 3 minutes to copy the 250Mb file - this is perfectly acceptable - especially when you consider the time taken to create a WORM media like a CD-R disk. I often use it to copy directories of files across and when travelling on business use it for a copy of our network drive. It has the standard type A four pin USB connector - as found on all computers with USB ports.

I have not used the technical support site at www.kingston.com/faqs/dt1 - I would not imagine that I would ever need to, but at least the manufacturer does not just assume that technical support is not required. The five year warranty is also more than adequate - I would however remind anyone using the product that the warranty does not provide for data lost - so take the usual precautions (e.g. backups etc.).

I went for a Kingston Data Traveler product as I had always been very satisfied with my previous memory stick - I am sure that it will still enjoy frequent use - they are always a lot more convenient than any of the other storage types which I used to have to use (CDRs, floppy disks etc.).

Summary: A good replacement for CDRs and floppy drives for data on the move.