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Written by [t0rc]
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Flash drives are great use to transport files and data around because
of their small form and increasing capacity. Ultra added a feature to
the boring flash drive, allowing it to play MP3's. Now when you're
walking between buildings, over to another office, or wherever, you've
got a little music to supress boredom. Check it out.
Everything arrived just fine, packaged nicely in it's own signature
box. It's a pretty fancy box for what you get but nonetheless it did
it's job. The package comes with CD, Flash Disk, In-line remote,
headphones, and a strap; a complete enough package for a USB flash
disk.
As you can see here the remote and flash drive are quite small; the
remote being in line so you aren't forced to have it all the time. The
remote has a nice casing, a soft rubber that is easy to grip but the
controls are a little frustrating. To switch songs on the drive you use
the FWD/RWD buttons; you can't see what song you're switching to so you
might have to search a little bit. Transfer rates are nothing to brag
about, being an older version it supports transfer rates of 12mb/s
maximum (USB 1.1). So file transfers are a little slow compared to most
other MP3 players or flash disks of recent design that use USB 2.0. But
then again, with only 128mb of memory you won't be transporting files
that take very long to transfer from HDD to the Flash Disk. We didn't
have any problems using with either Linux or Windows; no problems arose
with sensing the drive and installation. Please keep in mind that if
you're running Windows98SE you will need to install the drivers from
the included CD before using the drive.
Image Courtesy of Ultra Resources
The USB disk has a blue LED that shines when it's plugged into a USB
port and it flashes when it plays music. When it illuminates in a USB
port, thats great because you know it's getting power and it's not
bothering anyone. On the other hand, if you have it out and sitting on
a desk or your lap playing music, the constant flash we found
irritating. Of course, usually you'd put such a small device in your
pocket (especially with the separated controls) therefore it's really a
user preference.
Playing songs on this little drive is a decent experience, while it
doesn't have an LCD, it's not made with the primary purpose of being an
MP3 player. It's primary function is a USB disk, an MP3 player
secondary not the reciprocal. The drive runs off of a AAA size batter
which gives you 8+ hours of listening time, a little short but not
horrible for a USB Flash Drive. 128MB is not enough memory for a
dedicated MP3 player (about 34 songs that are 4:05//3.75MB) and really
we'd like to see this drive offered in the 1GB variety which would not
only prove more useful for music playing but file transfers as well. A
bit rate of 320 kb/s is the best for MP3's but this drive only supports
40 to 256 kb/s. If you're an audiophile and have this drive, we'd
suggest using 256 kb/s but if you're ears aren't trained audio devices
128 kb/s is the way to go. You'll be able to fit more songs on the
drive at decent quality and have more room for files.
Image Courtesy of Ultra Resources
Overall the Ultra USB Flash Disk + MP3 isn't a bad product but it has
an inappropriate price. $49.97 USD (at TigerDirect) isn't something
that we would pay for a 128MB flash drive that can play MP3's. It
doesn't have enough space to be an efficient MP3 player but it does
it's job pretty well as a USB Flash Drive. The Ultra USB Flash receives
a Bronze Award and a rating of 78%.
Thanks to Ultra for making this review possible.
| Flashy: | Flashbang: | - Music when transporting files
- Extremely Portable
- Sturdy
- Good bundle
| - Overpriced
- Only 128mb
- Slow transfer rate
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