Conclusions

Finally!  A flash drive that you can actually carry on your keychain.  I've used countless flash drives over the years and I will say that this is as close to perfect as it currently gets.   It is incredibly small, well designed and shockingly fast. 

Design

In terms for a design standpoint, you really can't ask for much more.  It is the smallest drive on the market yet it manages to feature a retractable connector.  There's no cap to lose and no exposed plug that can get damaged over time.  However, there are a few things to note regarding its design.  While this one will actually hold up well and suitable to carry along with your keys, it is made of plastic and its build quality is questionable after long term use.  Also, some compromises had to be made.  This little drive does not have any activity/status LED.  Heck, even their super thin Intelligent Stick 2.0 has a very small hidden LED.  However, when you factor in its incredibly small size and examine its design closely, you can see how embedding an LED on this one was practically impossible.  Personally, I find activity LED's useful in many occasions and prefer to have a flash drive that features one.  However, in this particular case, I will take a drive this small with a retractable connector over the LED anytime!

Performance

What truly impressed me the most going into this review was its performance.  Despite some negative comments I've read stating this drive is just too slow, I will tell you to ignore them and move on.  After reading them prior to testing, and not being impressed at all with the super slow performance of their original Intelligent Stick, I was completely surprised by the results.  In fact, there was one particular test that was well beyond the norm.  That happened to be the highly impressive Endurance Factor score this tiny drive was able to achieve.  Based on these findings, I have already contacted Sisoftware for clarification on this and reported this unusually high score in order to confirm its validity.  We'll see what they have to say. 

Folks, this tiny drive is fast and if you take a look at the thorough test results, you'll see it even comes close to the ultra fast Corsair Voyager GT in comparison.  Considering its overall size, you really can't ask for much more.   The major drawback with flash drives this small is speed.  They all tend to be quite sluggish and even have issues when transferring large files to an from the drive.  With the i810, this was not an issue at all and the drive performed flawlessly.  Truly impressive.

Final Thoughts

The icing on the cake?  Its price tag.  Considering you can find the 2GB model for only $20, this will be an impulse buy for many and there is really no reason not to pick one up.  PQI manages, once again, to retain the surprisingly unattainable title of the "Smallest Flash Drive" and with the i810, it will be interesting to see what comes next.  Its excellent design, highly impressive performance and incredibly low price earns our very highest recommendation.  Pick one up, you'll be glad you did! 

Now, just give me a drive designed just like this but made entirely out of aluminum (at least its outer shell) and with higher capacity, and that will certainly be the "perfect" flash drive.  We'll see when or if that happens!

More info on the PQI Intelligent i810 can be found on the PQIMemory Website.

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