14 DAY TRIAL // As if to show that USB 3.0 is finally sidelining USB 2.0 technology on every layer of the portable storage device market, Silicon Power has released a flash drive with both USB 3.0 performance and OTG support.
USB On-the-Go is a technology that permits a flash drive to treat a smartphone or tablet like they would a PC, over micro-USB ports.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it allows tablets and phones to treat them as though the former were PCs. After all, the mobile consumer electronics devices are the ones doing the work, save for the actual writing of data.
The name of the new flash drive is Mobile X31, which is not an indicator that USB 3.1 is supported, much as we'd like it to be.
Then again, it's not like flash drives are fast enough themselves to do anything with 10 Gbps speeds anyway, for now. But we digress.
The capabilities of the Mobile X31 flash drives
Besides the USB OTG technology, the newcomers don't bear any shocking traits. Sure, the Chip-on-Board technology means they are very small and vibration-proof.
Also, the Recuva File Recovery (allowing recovery of erased digital photos, documents, music and videos, or other files) is to be expected by now. The capacity is of up to 32 GB (8 GB and 16 GB are the other options).
What does stand out, if only a little bit, is the intelligent 360° swivel-cap design, whereby the black cap can swivel over or off the port. It won't totally keep dust away, but it should defend the USB connector from most everything else.
Finally, the Mobile X31 flash drive has a black, silver, and red color theme and ships with a free download of the SP File Explorer file management app. It's your decision whether to consider that cool software or just another example of bloatware.
Operating system support
The newcomer should work under pretty much every relevant operating system out there, including Linux 2.6x Mobile Device, Android 4.1.X, Windows Phone 8, Max OS 10.3.x., and Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / 7 / 8.
Basically, if you want a fast flash drive that works with all your devices, the new Silicon Power Mobile X31 is as good an option as any. Especially with how “green” it is (CE/FCC/BSMI/Green dot/WEEE/RoHS/KCC certified). Unfortunately, we don't know what the price of the thing is, for any of the available capacities.