14 DAY TRIAL // As odd as it sounds, PNY has, so far, chosen to stay mostly away from the USB 3.0 interface standard when launching flash drives, and any other external storage device really. Now, though, it has unveiled a stick that definitely puts the SuperSpeed technology to good use.
USB 3.0 is also known as the SuperSpeed Universal Serial Bus standard due to the massive performance advantage it has over the USB 2.0 High Speed specification.
For the sake of comparison, USB 2.0 can move data at 480 Mbps at best, but USB 3.0 can manage a full ten times that amount, 4.8 Gbps, rounded up to 5 Gbps most of the time.
The new storage unit from PNY Technologies, called HP x705w (has nothing to do with Hewlett-Packard) can read data at 80 MB/s and write it at 30 MB/s, which are fast rates indeed, to be honest.
It would have been enough to get the drives selling all on its own, but PNY wanted its high-end portable storage devices to be better than average in everything else as well.
After all, you might be the sort of person to care about your budget if it's just an 8 GB drive you want to buy. But if you're in the market for a 256 GB one (which PNY's newcomer definitely reaches), then you're probably not concerned about how much you need to spend anyway.
So PNY decided that, even if it does add to the price, the HP x705w should be dustproof and shockproof as well, so it encased it in a durable, black shell.
In fact, the company even included a dimpled area near the rear end of the sticks, so that your finger grip may never slip.
All in all, not only will the drive be able to move even the largest videos in mere minutes, but it will do so from an almost rugged packaging. The only asset that the newcomer cannot really boast about is compactness, but it's not like Chip On Board technology is an essential trait. Flash Drives, even the largest, still fit inside the smallest pockets just fine.
Finally, as is fairly common for flash drives, the back of the stick is shaped so that you may attach the cap to it when the drive is in use (a cap holder design, PNY calls it). Finally, the HP x705w is, of course, backwards compatible with USB 2.0 technology.
Unfortunately, the prices of the 8 GB to 256 GB PNY HP x705w flash drive units were not mentioned, though PNY did specify the 2-year warranty and more or less universal operating system compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, 7, 8 and Mac (Linux was oddly absent from the list even though it should still work).