Transcend thumbdrive gets tiny, colorful
Look at me! I am colorful and have a loop.
(Credit: Transcend)Facing a flash-based memory market downturn, flash chip makers are getting creative. Recently Super Talent unveiled a fancy thumbdrive with a black leather carrying case and on Wednesday, Transcend announced its new USB drive that's no less eye-catching.
However, you will still have to look very carefully to find it. The new Transcend JetFlash T5 drive is tiny, measuring only 1.2 inches by 0.6 inch by 0.2 inch and weighs merely 0.1 ounce.
Fortunately, it's very colorful, available in bright two-tone fashionable color schemes, including: orange/black (2GB), white/black (4GB), and red/black (8GB). The first two cost $8 and $13, respectively. It's currently unclear how much the 8GB version costs.
Though tiny, the new drive is constructed with unbreakable plastic and is rugged enough to resist bending, stress, vibration, shock, and even full water submersion, according to Transcend. It has a retractable connector with an attachment loop, making it suitable to be used as a mobile phone dongle or a key chain.
Specification-wise, the JetFlash T5 USB drives support high-speed USB 2.0 and offers transfer speed up to 480Mbps. It also comes with Transcend's downloadable JetFlash elite software that helps manage data and increase productivity on the go. The software can also turn the T5 into a key to automatically log into Web site accounts, or even temporarily lock a computer to prevent unauthorized access.
While these designs look really cool, I'd trade the colors for more storage space in a heartbeat.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong. 
