INTRODUCTION

   Whether that's a USB flash drive that we carry around with us or a portable hard drive which we use for the transfer of large chunks of data there's no doubt that portable storage devices have become part of our daily lives. The same can be said about tablets and although they haven't been around for nearly as much as USB flash drives i know many people who can't return back to the way things were prior to them getting their first tablet. Up until recently in the market one could find numerous USB flash drives of all sizes and capacities by many manufacturers which could be used with tablets either featuring full sized USB connectors or with the help of USB to microUSB adapters sold separately. It didn't take long however for that to become a serious problem when tablet manufacturers ceased support for full sized USB connectors (it was a necessary move to make tablets thinner) and since USB to micro USB adapters where never very popular to begin with a solution was needed. Kingston is amongst the very few USB drive manufacturers to take care of that issue with their latest DataTraveler MicroDuo OTG USB Flash Drive.

   Kingston Technology Company, Inc. is the world’s independent memory leader. Founded in 1987 with a single product offering, Kingston® now offers more than 2,000 memory products that support nearly every device that uses memory, from computers, servers and printers to MP3 players, digital cameras and mobile phones. In 2009, the company's sales reached $4.1 billion. With global headquarters in Fountain Valley, California, Kingston employs more than 4,000 people worldwide. Regarded as one of the “Best Companies to Work for in America” by Fortune magazine, Kingston’s tenets of respect, loyalty, flexibility and integrity create an exemplary corporate culture. Kingston believes that investing in its people is essential, and each employee is a vital part of Kingston’s success. Kingston serves an international network of distributors, resellers, retailers and OEM customers on six continents. The company also provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers and system OEMs.

   To solve the mentioned problem Kingston had two obvious solutions to choose from so they could either use a standard USB connector and attach an detachable microUSB adapter onto it or place both a standard USB connector and a microUSB connector into the same USB flash drive. Well as revealed clearly by its name the DataTraveler MicroDuo OTG features both a standard USB connector on one side and a microUSB connector on the other allowing it to be used both with standard PCs/Macs, smartphones and tablets. Unfortunately Kingston chose to use a USB 2.0 chip and although tablets don't support USB 3.0 as of yet i really think that USB 3.0 would be much more appealing (just because you can't have USB 3.0 speeds when plugged in a tablet that doesn't mean you shouldn't have them when plugged into a PC especially if you plan on using all of its capacity). Regardless the concept seems quite interesting so let's get a closer look.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Once again we see the classic clear plastic clamshell package from where you can see the flash drive.

The OS compatibility list and a quick description of the product are placed at the rear.

Along with the MicroDuo OTG 32GB Flash drive you are also getting a lanyard.

THE MICRODUO OTG 32GB

The MicroDuo OTG USB flash drive is very small and measures just 27.63mm in length, 16.46mm in width and 8.56mm in height.

As always we decided to showcase the size of the drive at hand by placing it right next to several others we have here.

The capacity of the drive is engraved at the top while at the bottom we see the serial numbers that guarantee you are using a genuine Kingston product.

Thanks to a protective cap you don't need to worry about damaging the microUSB connector.

Here you can see how much more convenient microUSB ports are compared to normal USB ports (for example a tablet would need to be almost twice as thick).

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY 

   Since flash drives are basically plain storage media devices just like solid state drives and hard disk drives we are using almost the same testing methodology to successfully record the achieved performance numbers. The benchmark suites used are HD Tach RW (Read Speeds / Long Bench 32mb Zone Testing), HD Tune Pro (Read speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Pro (Read / Write speeds), AIDA 64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear Read / Random Read speeds), Crystal Disk Mark x64 (100MB-1000MB Read / Write speeds) and finally ATTO (Max Read / Max Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into our charts.

   All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Service Pack 1 complete with every update until April 25th 2014. As always for comparison purposes in the charts you will also find many other flash drivers which have been tested using the same exact test bench as the one in this review (we really can't keep every flash drive we get forever and also even if we could testing them all again and again would simply not be possible).

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

CONCLUSION

   Some of you may wonder as to why we even bothered testing the MicroDuo OTG 32GB USB flash drive by Kingston since USB 2.0 speeds are more or less known and certainly not impressive. Well this may surprise some of you but not only have we seen USB 2.0 flash drives with much slower speeds but we've also seen USB 3.0 drives with speeds lower than those achieved by USB 2.0 drives (in some tests). Of course the MicroDuo OTG 32GB USB Flash Drive is not the leading USB 2.0 drive in terms of performance and you can see that just by checking our charts but since its primary use is with tablets i think we can put less weight on that (still we can't ignore it). The microUSB protection cap is a nice feature but that made us wonder as to why Kingston didn't choose to place an similar protection cap for the USB connector as well (it could actually look quite good). Sure a microUSB connector is much easier to get damaged than a full USB one due to its size but it never hurts to be prepared for everything.

   Much like SSDs the prices of USB flash drives have also taken a significant hit over the years (both USB 2.0 and 3.0) and so the price of the MicroDuo OTG 32GB is set very low at USD18.74 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 17Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). One can't really ignore that price tag and so even though the MicroDuo OTG 32GB USB Flash Drive is not USB 3.0 compatible it's very cheap and works as advertised making life easier for tablet owners. True Kingston can perfect the design by adding a USB 3.0 controller for the most demanding of users that may need the extra speed when transferring files onto the drive by regular PCs and MACs but until they do the MicroDuo OTG is the perfect solution and that's why we give it our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Size & Weight
- Design
- Dual Connectors (USB & MicroUSB)
- 5 Years Warranty
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- USB 2.0 (For Some)