Callum, 17 years old, studying for my A levels atm!
Callum, 17 years old, studying for my A levels atm!
Member since:16.01.2008
Reviews:32
Members who trust:1
I actually don't know what to call this, I know people who call them pen drives, some that call them usb sticks, usb flash drives... the list goes on, but whatever you call them, I own a few different ones, and this is probably my favourite because of it's looks, but the most annoying because of what it does...
Let's start with the looks. It's a small design, and as you can see is pretty modern and stylish! It does feel very durable, and I have dropped it several times and no damage has been done. There's a slider on the usb pen that is easily slid from one side to another, this of course 'ejects' the usb from it's shell so you can simply put it in to the usb port. This is one of the things I love most about this
product, all my other pen drives have lids. That's right, small, tiny lids, that you put on the side, turn round and the next thing you know they're gone! An absolute nightmare, once you've lost a lid they never seem to return, and without a lid your usb is easily going to get damaged. All these problems are erased with SanDisk's excellent solution. On the back of the pen drive is the SanDisk logo, followed by the U3 Smart logo (which we'll come to later) and in small writing are the products serial number, where the products made (china, obviously), and a few small symbols you see on most products. On the front of the pen drive to the left of the slider lays the products name 'cruzer' in a stylish font, and on the right of the slider lays micro 8gb (or whatever size you have) in the same stylish font. It fits in your hand nicely, and is extremely easy to insert into the usb port as expected!
Now for the thing that irritates me... When you insert the product, as long as you are using some of the latest operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Vista, two auto play menus will pop up. Yeah, that's right... two. One for the actual pen drive where you store all your files, and the other acts as if a cd/dvd has just been inserted into your drive...
For the actual storage device, you can simple open it up as if it were a normal hard drive and copy and paste, or drag and drop items on to it. You can even save files from the internet straight into it, you can't get much easier!
As for this U3 System you're still wondering about, it's a little more complicated. If you launch 'U3', a little logo appears on the right hand side of your task bar by the clock. This built-in software allows you to download programs of the internet such as free virus protection programs, zipped file software such as winzip and winrar, and other little gadgets that often come in handy. These install straight onto your pen drive, which I have to admit is an excellent idea if that's what you need. The majority of us however own these pen drives as we want to simply store files on them so that we can transfer them to other computers, whether it be for school or work. The U3 System is all that much of a problem, if you don't want to use it, you just don't click on it, but it does occasionally pop up with updates that it 'needs' to install, which can be irritating if you just want to get on with what you're doing. And the most annoying thing is not having the option to delete this software... there it is just sitting there on your pen drive. You can right click and delete, but as soon as your pen drive is put back into your computer, it's reappeared again! Fortunately, it only takes up 1mb, but it's the fact that it's sitting there in my nicely organized folder that bugs me most.
Overall, I'd say it's the best pen drive on the market, even if it does come with an annoying piece of software that some of us don't require. It's very stylish and modern, looks great, doesn't have a lid and is available online and in some shops for a great price!
You can get it in Black, White and Titanium, and lots of different sizes including 1gb, 2gb, 4gb, 8gb and 16gb. You'll be looking at about £5 for the 1gb version, £30 for the 16gb version, and about £10 for the 8gb version if you buy them from Amazon.co.uk.
Summary: for the price you can get it for, it's worth it!
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My husband and I normally call them 'memory sticks' as they are very good in keeping quite a lot of memory handy. My husband has a Cruzer memory stick which pretends it is a 'floppy disc' drive as well as a USB stick ~ and the floppy part of it is a password-protected system which would wipe clean the remainder of the memory stick if the wrong password is entered into it (that would have been useful for those memory sticks lost by the government departments, I reckon) ~ however he is scared to use it because, like me, he has a struggle to remember passwords ~ and cannot bear the thought of losing all his data if he got it wrong!
. . . . . . ♥ jesi ♥
Cruzer® Micro now ships with U3 smartTM technology. Co-Invented by SanDisk, U3 technology ... more
gives you the ability to carry your files AND your software on a secure USB drive. You can have your wallpaper, preferences, favorites, profiles, and more - every...
Postage & Packaging: £4.39 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Comes with a wide range of features, Very good value for money, Easy to use, Good looking. Disadvantages: Has a long load up time, When putting the stick in to the USB port the connector tends to retract.
Aug 16th, 2008
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