14 DAY TRIAL // Flash drives used to be pretty large at one point, almost as long as pens and twice as thick, although, admittedly, pretty flat as well. Things are different now, as evident from how even the most basic flash drives are almost small enough to disappear inside a USB port.
Speaking of basic flash drives, Foxlink PQI, or PQI as it is more generally known, has released the U605L Flash Drive. You should be able to find it available anywhere in the world.
Either that, or global availability will be established soon enough. Sales may even turn out quite well too, since this is the exact type of flash drive whose price attracts customers.
Then again, it's not like the performance will be anything to gasp in awe over. PQI, unfortunately, used USB 2.0 technology instead of USB 3.0.
The disadvantages of the PQI U605L Flash Drive
USB 3.0 technology, the SuperSpeed standard as it is otherwise known, has been adopted by almost every new external storage device, because of its performance advantage over USB 2.0. While USB 2.0 ports can reach 480 Mbps, the USB 3.0 standard can achieve 5 Gbps.
Indeed, you'd think that we'd start to see some serious USB 3.1 flash drives right about now, since the 10 Gbps standard has been around for a few months by this point.
Alas, sometimes companies still take a step back, or several jumps back into the past. The new PQI U605L Flash Drive is an example of such an occurrence. Why? Because it does use a USB 2.0 port, against all odds.
It's not all bad though. The newcomer at least boasts a COB construction. Chip on Board as it were, which allows all the storage space, plus the port, to fit in a case of such a small size.
All in all, the newcomer measures 34 x 18.2 x 10.6 mm / 1.33 x 0.71 x 0.41 inches and weighs 9.2 grams / 0.32 ounces. The case bears the theme of an ocean with one sailboat and a bunch of seagulls flying overhead (or are they albatrosses?). In fact, they even have their own keychains which emulate the look of lifebuoys.
Availability
The Foxlink PQI flash drives will start to "Explore the World in a Boat" soon enough, in red and blue colors and capacities of 4 GB to 32 GB. And with the bottom plug design, you won't have to worry about losing the cap.
The PQI U605L Flash Drive is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Max 10.X or greater operating systems. Unfortunately, the price wasn't included in the company's announcement.