14 DAY TRIAL // The USB 3.0 technology has already caused somewhat of an uproar, both through its high-speed capabilities and its continued scarcity. While Dane-Elec has already released USB 3.0-compatible products, such as its SuperSpeed series of external hard and solid-state drives, it seems that the flash-drive market won't be seeing any flash drives from this company just yet, with Dane-Elec only bringing out a flash drive for the USB 2.0 interface.
Despite not supporting 3.0, the device, called Micro Mate, can still reach data-transfer speeds of up to 35MB/s when reading and of 6.5 MB/s when writing (the drive is High-Speed USB-certified). The product is very small, in tune with its name. It measures a mere 1.7cm x 3cm x 0.3cm and is packed inside a shiny, metal casing. The casing is equipped with a flipping mechanism, which protects its connection port.
The drive is not all that impressive when it comes to the storage capacity, though. The three models have 2, 4 or 8GB of memory, which, although little compared with other flash drives capable of even 64GB, make it suitable for the low-end market segment. Nevertheless, it is small, virtually unnoticeable and can still carry 800 pictures or up to three hours of video, making sure that low-end users would not regret their purchase.
Dane-Elec's Micro Mate has, besides the modest storage capacity, another disadvantage, namely the high chance of being lost forever if in any way misplaced. To make up for this, the drive comes with a small key ring to ensure that it won't be swept away by the four winds.
Excellent for the low-end market, the Micro Mate flash drives come in three models differentiated by their storage capacity, with the 2 GB version costing £9.99, the 4GB £19.99 and the 8GB drive at the price of £34.99.