Conclusion:
I have been using the Ultra Products Fly Drive and the Sandisk Cruzer as my personal USB flash drives for a while now. I have been happy with how they have stood up to being tossed around and generally abused, and I thought they performed rather well. This was all before I had used the
ATP Electronics USB flash drives. Both the Petito and the ToughDrive Mini out performed the Ultra Fly Drive and the Sandisk Cruzer. For my personal use, I have officially reassigned the Fly Drive and the Cruzer to store family photos and other documents I need to have in an ultra portable format, while the ToughDrive Mini will be my "workhorse" flash drive.
During all the torture the ToughDrive Mini was subjected to, I was sure the drive was going to eventually fail. I am happy to report that the drive is still fully functional! There has been no loss of quality or speed. The blue activity LED still flashes when the drive is in use, and the cap still slides into place with a little force. I am really impressed at how well this drive has stood up throughout all the tests.
There really are no negatives to list for the ATP Flash Drives. They have everything a user could need, most important of which are a wide range of capacities and fast transfer speeds. While I found the software to be lacking (it only included a 30 day trial version of
CarryItEasy). It would be nice to have a full version of CarryItEasy, as it offers 128bit AES encryption, portable email and favorites, My Documents synchronization, and other nice functions. I can not fault the manufacturer for not included the software as that could increase the price. Providing the software as a trial version allows them to keep the price of the flash drive down, while still providing a solution to the user that does need it.
Otherwise, I would recommend putting some additional support around the hole where the clip attaches on the ToughDrive Mini. If I was asked to pick a wish list item for the ATP flash drives, hardware based encryption would be a nice feature to include.
A search of
PriceGrabber finds the ATP Flash Drives available from $23.99 (US) for a 1GB Petito, to $39.99 (US) for the 2GB ToughDrive. When comparing these prices to similar flash drives, they are well priced for the quality and performance you receive. The Sandisk Cruzer 2GB flash drive used in this review can be obtained for approximately $19.99 (US), however keep in mind that it performed approximately 50% slower than the ATP flash drives.
Given the speedy performance, innovative features, and overall quality, I award the
ATP Electronics USB 2.0 flash drives the rating of "Highly Recommended".
Pros:
» Small size
» Various capacities
» Fast transfer speeds
» ToughDrive Mini is very tough
Cons:
» No real negatives, but hardware based encryption would be a nice feature
Special thanks to
ATP Electronics for providing the ATP Electronics ToughDrive and Petito Flash Drives to Bigbruin.com for review!
