Nowadays USB flash is a common thing everyone have. However, this one--Gizmo! Jr 4GB USB flash drive--is come in a very very tiny little package which makes me wow every time I look at it. 4GB on this thing is really showing how far we have come in semiconductor world.
As you can see it's so small and it looks like chewy gum indeed. This is probably the smallest flash drive could do for USB 2.0 because of limiting of USB port size.
Did I say this thing is darned tiny? It's not that small when I saw in the picture as well; you will amaze if seeing this in person. Thanks to Gizmo! that they don't forget to have a lanyard hole so that we will have a chance to impress this longer--make it easier to find & not get lost too easily :-P Or you could even put this flash drive in your key chain.
Performance:
We will take a look at the performance side. You are expecting this to be lightning fast, ain't you? you were wrong. This is just plain USB flash drive, yet not very slow.
I don't know if HD Tune could show anything about flash drive better than real hard drive, at least, you see transfer rate is quite good for this small thing and the access time is excellent as expected. Then I decide to benchmark with SiSoft Sandra to get in depth detail, here is what I got.
As you see, this drive's throughput on smaller file is mediocre; which is not pass Vista's ReadyBoost requirement. Thus, if you expect to use this as ReadyBoost stick, go find something else.
ReadyBoost Requirement:
The device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads uniformly across the entire device and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device.
Its performance is quite good on the bigger file though. Imagine copying one CD image file to this in 1 and a half minutes to 2 minutes, it should be alright in daily basis work.
Conclusion:It's quite good, isn't it? It's tiny, yet acceptable performance. If you are looking for an USB flash drive, this one--$9.99 at the time I bought--is really good one. You can even use this as a gift--it's damned cute--I really mean it. The only thing I found that is not really good of this tiny design is the plastic envelop. It's really easily to loose and doesn't have anything to hold it on tight. Probably they don't design to give any protection to this drive anyway since it's already durable by itself.
Pros:
» tiny
» cute
» Did I say it's very small yet?
Cons:
» so-so performance
» easily to get lost