Super Talent makes some of the best micro USB flash drives currently available. What sets their Pico line of thumb drives apart from the rest is their rugged durability while maintaining such a small form factor. A few months ago I reviewed the Sony 8gb Micro Vault Tiny USB Flash Drive and while it is a great thumb drive it is extremely fragile and a bit slow. Super Talent’s Pico C drive has neither of these shortcomings.
Hardware Specifications
| Drive Type | Solid State USB Flash Drive |
| Capacities (gb) | 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 |
| Data Transfer Rate | Up to 30MB/s (200x) |
| Connector Type | USB Type A |
| Dimensions (HxWxD mm) | 31.3 x 12.4 x 3.4 |
| Weight (g) | 5 |
| OS Support | Windows Vista, XP, 2000 & Mac OS X |
| Warranty | Limited Lifetime Warranty |
The Pico C’s casing is constructed of a durable, chromed metal. There is a relatively strong loop integrated into the end of the drive allowing you to attach it to your keys or lanyard. I find these factors a definite plus especially compared to the Sony Micro Vault which I was having to consistently plan where I was going to keep/carry it (for safety and find-ability).
Other than capacity, there is no difference between the 1gb, 2gb, 4gb, 8gb and 16gb versions of the Pico C. Along with chrome, the Pico C also comes in nickel and 24 karat gold (for those desiring a bit more bling in their flash drives). The part of the drive that is inserted into the USB port is a bit thicker than others. And while it goes into and out of my Macbook Pro and work laptop easy enough, it took a good amount of force to insert it into & remove it from my Macbook Air’s USB port.
Depending on how you calculate the dimensions, I do believe the Pico C takes the title of the smallest flash drive (I have ever seen/heard of) from the Sony Micro Vault Tiny. Although, it is a hair heavier and thicker than the Micro Vault, it definitely makes up for it in durability.
As stated above, along with being very small and light weight, the Pico C is extremely durable. Now I will not be abusing it quite as much as Julie has done in several of her past thumb drive reviews but I trust that it will survive the day to day abuse of my hectic schedule. The Pico thumb drives are ‘water resistant’ which I believe is more than the ‘I forgot my thumb drive in my pocket, accidentally washed it, let it dry, and it worked’ that most of us have lived through. Super Talent has actually engineered them to be more water tight (vs many other flash drives on the market).
The Pico C’s upload/download speeds are relatively zippy for such a small drive. My unofficial speed tests showed that it was definitely faster than my other small flash drives (Sony and Lexar).
Like Sony’s Micro Vault, the Pico thumb drives can be transported almost anywhere (and lost forever in the blink of an eye). Historically, I have preferred to carry my smaller thumb drives in the coin pocket of my pants/jeans. But for now, I am planning on keeping this thumb drive on my key ring. And while my keys scratch up the chrome a bit, it is more than a fair trade to not only have it with me more but connected to something easier to find. Other than its ability to become very lost, there really aren’t any noteworthy cons associated with the Pico C and will become my primary thumb drive of choice.
Product Information
| Price: | approx. $40 |
| Manufacturer: | Super Talent |
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I am highly impressed with this drive and have eyeballed it for a while. However, I’ve heard a few reviewers criticize the thickness of the device and that it has caused some damage to USB ports, other than that issue, I have been sold.
I have their 8GB version. Love it. It’s really sturdy. It is a tight fit on 2 of my laptops but not bad enough that I have to use much force to push it in. Can’t wait for them to make a 32GB version. =)
When I use this drive with my MBAir I use a short USB extension cable….works like a champ.
I agree, it’ll be great when Super Talent releases a 32gb version.
Awesome little drive!!! It is a bit snug, but with an extension cable it’s fine. Got my 16gb through newegg at $40.65 including tax and shipping.
I purchased a three pack of the 8gb version. Within 48 hours of receiving the drives, all three were dead. First, I noticed that some of the image files that I had copied to the drives had been corrupted. As I checked over the files, I found more and more corruption of data. After attempting to re-copy the data, drives eventually could not be read. Any attempt to format the drives failed. The drives were hot to the touch.
I found several posts and reviews with similar problems. It really is too bad. I really like the design and would be very interested in having one that is stable.
I bought an 8gb one 2 weeks ago. It works perfectly fine with my laptop(Vista) but I cant get it to work under XP SP3. Under SP3, most of the time it is not recognised as a usb device and when it is recognised, you can’t copy a file to it because it unmounts and mounts the drive with a delayed write failed warning. I’ve read some reviews about this and it seems that this problem only exists for SP3. They say that it works fine with SP2 but I haven’t tested it yet.
@Yigit I’ve had that problem under XP SP2 i tracked it to be a faulty USB extension cable that had bad contacts. fortunately I lost data i already have
@Tilse: I had a similar experience. Bought a 8Gb version and it was dead within a day. I returned it and got my money back. I did like the design so much that after a month I got myself a new one because I wanted to give the little fella a second chance. And this 2nd pico is still running great after half a year of daily use. I think that Supertalent just had a few bad production batches. So just buy yourself another one and chances are high that this one will work as a charme.
I had a 8gb Super talent pico just like this one. Last week, It suddenly died. The OS don’t recognize it anymore. It’s not virus neither a format problem. Its a hardware failure and I’ve lost very important data. I don’t recommend it. Plus, its connector is thicker than the usual usb plugs. It’s hard to insert it (enters very tight) and may damage more fragile usb ports like notebook’s.
Five minutes and *dead*.
Unrecognisable after in posession of a pico c for five minutes. I placed it in my drive and tried to write an If found please return to text file and could not save due to it unmounting. What an absolute crock!!!!!
I’ve had it for literally five minutes and it has stopped working. Think it is ridiculous that this problem has occured to many people.
read reviews about it stopping working after a short space of time as well as some good reviews on the drive. took the plunge and bought one and it worked well for about 4 weeks. plugged it into my laptop today and it is not recognised (appears as a drive but when clicking on it it says “please insert disk into drive…”.
feels hot to the touch even after transferring small files. very disappointing – avoid!!!!
I bought 2 of the 64GB SuperCrypt and have had to have them replaced 4 times. Either they die outright or I get “password.exe has stopped working” error. bought them to use for a rotating backup and they have never worked for longer than two or three plug ins. Unreliable and a waste of $560. RMA will not even replace them any more. Be aware, not all thier products work well.
Noticed the last review here is from June 1, 2011… It’s now June 9, 2012, and ‘hope’ that have resolved the issues by this time, that I’ve read here!
I’m going to basically leave the about the same review I had written about the Verbatim USB drive, after reading reviews on amazon about it’s failure rate;
“I do read reviews! And was not happy with what I read here…
Have been searching for a small USB drive to wear around my neck with all my medical conditions, medications, allergies, and medical history on it, in case of an emergency.
‘So much more’ than what can be engraved on a bracelet or dog tag! And something that can be updated as needed, without wasting money having something new engraved, every time I need to make changes.
Basically something that will speak for me, (if I am unable to on my own), to EMT personal and doctors.
Reading the reviews here, I don’t think this is something I would want to risk my life with!
Don’t care if it has a lifetime warranty, and would be replaced if it crapped out… I need something ‘dependable’, that’s going to work the first time, and every time.
Don’t need to be in a life threatening situation, have someone plug it in only to find out at some point it went bad, and is totally useless!
Water proof? (as it’s advertized to be)… I highly, seriously doubt that!
If used as an ’emergency medical alert’ device, this is something that needs to be hung around someone’s neck 24/7.
From what I’ve read, it surely doesn’t sound like this is something that would stand up to dirt, sweat, water, heat, cold, and other elements.
Not when others experienced these going bad when just used as a back-up thumb drive to store data on, and ‘not’ taking those elements into consideration.
No thanks, ‘Verbatim’, not even if for free! It’s just not worth the risk…”
Is this ‘Pico’ any better now, after a year of numerous bad reviews???
Can’t recommend this highly enough!
Had the 8gb version on my keyring for 4 years now – never had a problem. It’s so tiny and durable, although a squeeze to fit in some USB ports.
Love it, and it has the wow factor when people see it as it looks like a piece of jewellery (like those little silver ingots).
It has been used loads, yanked out mid transfer etc on numerous occasions. All other, larger drives I’ve owned either failed or physically broke (or lost – I once owned an even smaller drive than this but it was made of plastic and snapped off my keyring one day!).
So, I recommend this, and will be getting the 32gb version soon