HP x760w USB 3.1 Flash Drives product reviews

While there are cheaper units out there, some of equal quality, there are few that carry the same "Oh cool!" factor as this design. Securely wrapped in a metal shell that precludes the need for a cap, this little beauty has a neat carabiner-style clip built into the design that makes it perfect for attaching to your keyring, bag strap, or "fashion lanyard" to keep your important information with you at all times, or just in case someone has an awesome movie clip you want a copy of.

While the official specs state that the transfer speeds can reach "up to 75MB/s" I was pleased to see write speeds around the 42MB/s range and, colour me shocked, read speeds that topped out at just over 124MB/s - almost twice as fast as the specs stated. I had to perform the tests again on 2 other machines to confirm it, which they did. The only way I managed to get the device to read at less than this, was to plug it into a USB 2 port, which naturally brought the numbers down considerably, but they were still on the high end of USB 2's range. Most impressive indeed.

This unit is nice and compact, very discrete, and the brushed-silver finish meant it didn't look out of place on the keyring or on a lanyard around the neck. If you got crafty and sanded off the writing on the back, you could easily pop this under a laser etcher and add your own design to make it into a fashion piece. Alas, you can't remove the HP logo on the front - it's stamped into the metal making it embossed deeply enough to be visible even if you managed to scrape away all the black enamel.

I dropped this unit off a 20m bridge onto gravel and it survived beautifully, still able to read/write with no visible damage, and it even survived an accidental dunking in super-salty water when it fell out of my shirt pocket while I was getting changed for a session in a float tank. There was a small amount of mineral crystalisation on the contacts, but a wooden toothpick and some good lighting saw it cleaned off and still fully functional. I would not suggest taking it swimming with you though - it's not going to enjoy being soaked in corrosive liquids for long.

Overall, this unit was, for me, a bit of a Dark Horse and I am delighted by the revelation of much faster read speeds than stated. I won't say you can bank on that happening for you, but it's quite likely this will be a pleasing purchase, and make an excellent gift for the technogeek in your life too!