The drive comes in a small blister packet, similar to every other retail packages… meaning that you have to have a pair of industrial-strength scissors, or a lightsaber to open it. There isn’t alot of extras to the package, as a matter of fact the only thing inside is the drive itself (the paper insert doubles as the product’s manual).
USB drives are so trendy today, that many of them now have interesting designs to distinguish themselves among the sea of silicon. A-data’s C702 has a stylish look that fits in with today’s sleek MP3 players, cell phones, and other gadgets. It is made mostly of white plastic that has a semi-pearl finish to it. The sides of the drive are adorned with shiny chrome-like metal, and the top has a small clear window to let the unit’s blue LED shine through. The back of the plastic has a notch to allow this drive to be easily attached to a keychain (or lanyard if you want to advertise your geekness).
The most interesting feature (which I wish more USB drives had) is a slide-out USB connector! Similar to A-Data’s PD17 drive, the USB connector is hidden within the drive’s base, and a notch on the side slides the full-size USB connector out (like a turtle popping its head out).
When plugged in, the device responds just like any other USB drive. The blue LED doesn’t glow constant when plugged in, and only flashes when there is drive activity. I prefer this setup, as an “always on” USB drive light can be distracting when sitting on my desk. Also, the blue LED isn’t as blinding as other drives that use orange LEDs, which tend to be very bright.
The plastic shell feels good, but also feels a little hollow. I wouldn’t take this drive on a river-rafting or rock-climbing expedition, but is more than adequate for the sedentary lifestyle most geeks enjoy. If you do attach this to your keychain, then it may get scratched and dinged by its metal neighbors, but should be alright.
One thing to note is that this “16-gigabyte” drive has in actuality 15 gigabyte of usable space. This is because of the different standards of what a gigabyte really is (is a kilobyte exactly 1000 bytes or 1024 bytes?). Marketing folks like to exploit this ambiguity to make a drive look bigger than it really is… but everyone does it. Every 16GB drive is only going to have 15GB of usable space… just a fact of life.
