There are two things that immediately struck me about this particular USB flash drive from the folks at Super Talent. First, this thing is bloody tiny. It’s not appropriate to call it a thumb drive at all because this USB drive is actually quite a bit smaller than the average adult thumb. It’s more appropriate to call it a USB stick or something. Pinky perhaps? When the drive can be almost completely occluded by a quarter, you know that it’s ridiculously small.
Second, it’s gold. It’s not every day that you come across something for your computer that has been dressed up in a super-shiny coating of gold. For nearly all intents and purposes, the Super Talent PICO-C USB drive is just as much a piece of jewelry as it is a piece of technology. With these two points in mind, is the PICO-C USB drive super talented or can it not even qualify for the role of the understudy?
Specifications and Technical Details
Despite its tiny stature, the Super Talent Pico USB drive actually packs quite a wallop and can hold its own against drives that are several times its physical size:
- Capacities: 1GB to 8GB (as tested)
- Dimensions: 31.3mm x 12.4mm x 3.4mm
- 24-carat gold plated
- Weight: 4.7 grams
- Up to 30MB/s (200x) data transfer rate
- Durable solid-state storage – 10 years data retention
- Hot plug & play
- Water resistant
- Rugged design
Aside from the special PICO-C gold plated special edition, the Super Talent PICO is also available in three other variants: the swiveling PICO-A, the retractable PICO-B, the water resistant PICO-C, and the swivel-style PICO-D. They are all functionally identical and about the same size; they just happen to take on slightly different form factors. More information can be found on the official product page.
Build Quality and Aesthetics
You would think that with a flash drive as small as the Super Talent PICO-C Gold Edition that it would be terribly fragile. This is especially true because of the soft 24k gold, right? Wrong. I found that the build quality on this drive was very solid, somewhat earning the “rugged” designation that Super Talent decided to give it. Although it wouldn’t be fair to expect the Super Talent PICO-C to withstand too much physical abuse (that’s where something like the Corsair Survivor would come into play), it’s certainly stronger than some of the plastic USB flash drives on the market.
In terms of aesthetics, the gold plating on the PICO-C Gold Edition is largely a matter of personal preference. I’m not a huge fan of it myself, but I can see how some fashionistas may appreciate how the drive doesn’t have much of a geeky appearance to it. Like I said, it’s like a piece of jewelry. Heck, the little cord that comes bundled with the drive is even gold.
If you’re not a fan of shiny things, you can opt for one of the other Super Talent PICO drives, perhaps taking one one of the swiveling form factors to provide a little more protection for the USB connector. That’s one of my complaints about the PICO-C, because the USB connector is always exposed to the elements. That helps to keep the device small though.
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Performance and Benchmarks
Super Talent claims that the PICO-C Gold USB flash drive is capable of pushing around 0s and 1s at a rate of 30 megabytes per second. How well was our 8GB unit able to hold up in an HD Tune benchmark? Surprisingly well!
As you can see, the drive was able to sustain an average data transfer rate of 26.4MB/sec. There were two unexpected dips down to about the 15MB/sec range. While it’s not perfect, this is still pretty good. The burst rate of 24.7MB/sec could be better as well, but likely a side effect of system overhead.
Using the drive under real life conditions, I found that the benchmarks were largely able to hold up. Writing a folder containing 1.03GB of data to the drive took 3:09, which works out to about 5.4MB/sec. Transferring the same folder back to my laptop’s hard drive took about 42 seconds. That works out to about 24.5MB/sec. This is comparable with most other consumer-level flash drives.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to most fashion-oriented technology, you are left having to sacrifice something in terms of performance and utility. Such is not the case with the Super Talent PICO-C Gold USB flash drive. It may not offer any special features like U3 or data encryption, but its performance holds up just fine against most conventional flash drives.
I would have liked to see some form of protection for the USB connector so that it would be shielded from the elements, but you can find that kind of protection from the rest of the PICO line. The glaring 24k gold plating won’t be for everyone (it’s not for me), but I can see how it would fit in a little better next to a key for a Mercedes, for example. A boring plastic drive just doesn’t look as nice.
If you’re in the market for a flash drive, want something small, and would prefer some “bling” with your tech, the Super Talent PICO-C Gold USB flash drive just might be for you.
Pros
- Good performance with sustained read speed of 26MB/sec
- Remarkably small and thin
- Excellent build quality and good water resistance
- Doesn’t cost much more than regular drives
- It’s gold
Cons
- Easy to lose due to small size
- USB connector is completely unprotected
- Limited to 8GB maximum capacity
- It’s gold
Overall Rating: 9.0/10
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