As flash memory drives are very popular nowadays, manufacturing companies are facing stiff competition on a market almost saturated with different brands of products, from the simplest ones that are featuring only the basic storage function, to more complex devices that offer native encryption support or a host of other features.

Corsair is one of the most successful companies on the flash storage market and now, in order to maintain that advantage, it announced the launch of a new flash memory stick that features an innovative and useful display which can inform users about the drive's condition and so on.

According to the manufacturing company, Corsair, the new flash memory drive is built with ''user friendliness in mind'' as each Flash Readout USB drive comes with a built-in small display screen that is able to show the storage capacity used, the remaining free space and a personal label. The innovative use of a Bi-stable Cholesteric Display (BCD for short) enables the integrated display to show this information for up to one year and that is done without the use of an external power source like a battery.

The Corsair flash memory drive shows the information under several forms, like the 11 long alphanumeric personalized label, or the used storage space that is identified by a pie chart, while the remaining free space on the drive is shown with a 4 digit display. In order to allow users fast response times and quick access to their files, the Corsair Flash Readout are using the high speed USB 2.0 interface, while maintaining backward compatibility with the older and slower USB 1.1.

When it comes to storage space, the new Corsair flash memory stick is available in several capacities like 1, 2, 4 and 8GB and thanks to its fast data transferring interface, it is able to reach reading speeds of 20MB per second, while it is capable of a sustained write speed up to 7MB per second. As it is based on the plug and play standard, this memory device is compatible with just about any host computer system or operating system like the Microsoft Windows Vista, XP, 2000, ME, Linux 2.4.0 and later, Mac OS 9, X and later. The 4GB version of the Corsair Flash Readout drive is now available for $76 and the price tags for the other flash memory sticks will soon follow.