PhotoFast i-Flashdrive Cross Platform USB Drive Review

This is a pretty nifty device, a USB drive for your phone. It works with iPhone 4, iPhone5/s, iPad and Android devices with a micro USB connector. It’s the only device of its kind that is Apple certified. This means that when you connect it to your iPhone it will automatically ask you if you want to download/start the i-flashdrive app. So it’s very easy to use.

The app is also very straight forward and easy to understand. You can backup your contacts, connect it to your Dropbox and transfer files easily between the flashdrive, the phone and your Dropbox.

It supports a ridiculous amount of file types. All of which you can open directly in the app, you can even use Airplay with it.

The device comes in four configurations: 8GB for $99, 16GB for $150 ($170 with the Lightning tip), 32GB for $200 (Lightning tip included) and 64GB for $329 (Lightning tip included). The one I tried was the 16GB version with lightning tip.

To be honest, being the second generation of this device I think they should have dropped the old Apple 30-pin connector and went with just the lightning connector. When using the lightning adapter it feels like it’s easy to break, but even if you accidentally broke it off you’d just have to replace the lightning adapter.

It’s kind of slow, but not terribly slow. It only has USB 2.0, but since finding a similar device with the same ease of use will be very difficult, I guess that’s okay. Using USB it has a transfer speed of 10MB/s, but due to limitations in Apples file transfer protocol it can only transfer at 2.5MB/s for lightning devices and 1.5MB/s for older iDevices.

Also just so you know, it wont work as a charger or sync cable.

While anyone could use your i-flashdrive if you loose it, you can encrypt individual files, so it’s still very secure.

Otherwise the device is so far one of its kind and works very well, and most importantly it’s easy to use. Despite the price this device is one of those things you should always have with you. It can save you from loosing important files and also makes it incredibly easy to transfer files between your iphone and pc, or even between an iPhone and an Android phone. I’m quite happy with my iFlashdrive HD, and I was honestly very surprised at how easy it is to use. Similar devices I’ve tried have been so much of a hassle to use that I just ended up getting rid of them.

You can get the i-Flashdrive HD 2.0 here, or find a local retailer here.