The Good: Good capacity, Secure, Comes with a cap.
The Bad: A little pricier than less-stylish drives.
The Basics: A good flash drive, the Petio Special Edition is a little more expensive to offset the donation to an anti-cancer charity.
A few years ago, I think it would have been seen as ridiculous to consider a flash drive a fashion accessory. Truth be told, though, I came very late to the portable memory phenomenon. I didn't know what a flash drive was until a former student of mine showed me! But now, it seems not only are flash drives made to be fashionable and fit in with one's personal style, they are also intended to promote one's attitudes and causes, much like a bumper sticker. So, when I found myself in the market for a new flash drive, one of the ones I purchased to make a backup of my writing was the ATP Electronics Petio Breast Cancer Research flashdrive. I'm not a huge supporter of cancer research, but I figured for the few extra dollars, I might do something socially worthwhile with my money.
The Petio Special Edition is a sleek, pink rounded flash drive which reminds me actually of a lip gloss container. Its curves are definitely designed to look comfortable and feminine, but as one who loves breasts, I figured I could walk around with this flash drive and I'd not suffer adversely for it. ATP Electronics is donating ten percent of each purchase of the Petio Special Edition to the Susan G. Komen Foundation and that is a generally well-regarded charity, so I felt good about paying almost five dollars more for the 4 GB flash drive.
The ATP Electronics Petio Special Edition is a USB flash drive which is one of the thicker, curvier ones on the market. The Petio Special Edition is a bit wider than the USB port at the one end of it. The Petio Special Edition is wider (almost 1” wide) and thicker (approximately 3/8" thick) than most flash drives, which makes sense. If one is trying to make a statement with the flash drive, they want it to be visible and this certainly is. The Petio Special Edition has a 4 gigabyte capacity and it comes with a hard pearlescent pink plastic cap.
Flash drives like the Petio Special Edition are essentially portable hard drives and this is in many ways a very average flash drive. The cap is a pearlescent pink hard plastic cap which snaps over the stainless steel male end of the USB port. This protects the metal end and the thinner chip-like leads inside it. The cap is easily removed by simply pulling on it and easily replaced by pushing it down until one hears it snap into place.
The Petio Special Edition is simple to use: uncap the top to expose the male end of the USB connector and plug the Petio Special Edition into the female end of a USB port on any computer device that has the female connecting end! It is that simple. The ATP Electronics Petio Special Edition comes with no software, but any device that recognizes USB 2.0 will instantly accept and recognize the Petio Special Edition. The beautiful thing about the Petio Special Edition is that it truly is a universal flash drive; it may move files between Windows-based, Apple-based or unique platform (like Playstation 3) devices, so long as the device has a USB port!
The speed of file transfers varies based on the size of the files being moved and the already-used capacity of the Petio Special Edition. My partner moves around more files than I do and she uses more complex files. I was very much on-edge about having a flash drive with four gigabytes worth of capacity because that's a lot of information to lose if anything goes wrong. As a result, I have been using the Petio Special Edition more as a repository for my files where they are intended to go as a more permanent form of back-up. For the last half-year, this has been working perfectly for just that!
The Petio Special Edition does not have any external indicators – like LEDs - to confirm when it is in use. Thus, it depends completely upon the software one is using to know when file transfers are complete.
While information on the Petio Special Edition is secure, the casing is easy to scuff up. Fortunately, because the pearlescent pink shell has a matte finish, it does not show wear nearly as easily as other flash drives I have had!
For those looking for a decent amount of capacity and a flash drive that looks good, the Petio Special Edition does that quite well. The Petio Special Edition keeps information safe and so long as ATP Electronics is holding up their end, the flash drive is a socially conscious fashion statement for computer users!
For other computer products, please check out my reviews of:
Apple iPod Touch
HP Laserjet 6P Laser Printer
and the index page!
5/10
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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