I was looking for something to use for a giveaway here on ITsVISTA, and figured a USB flash drive would be something viewers of any level could utilize. I looked for those that were certified to work with Vista’s ReadyBoost feature, and stumbled upon the KingMax Super Stick. You won’t believe your eyes.

Billed as the world’s tiniest USB drive, it’s not only small, but water and heat resistant (hello washing machine), USB 2 compliant, and certified for use with Vista. Here’s the product description from Amazon:

The world’s lightest, thinnest and only water-resistant and heat-resistant USB flash drive is now 50% FASTER with Vista Boost Certified!. The Super Stick is convenient enough for consumers to carry anywhere, and its trendy design makes it a great mobile phone strap accessory, necklace or keychain. It can even be stored in a wallet. The Super Stick is so small that it measures and weights about the size of a paper clip. It works with USB 2.0, allowing for the high-speed transfer of documents and data in your day-to-day work. The Super Stick is made to last using a patented packaging technology that is stronger than plastic or aluminum casing. In fact there is no casing; it is built directly into the sealed substrate making it resistant to water, heat and shock, virtually indestructible. Plus no snap-on cap is needed. Hate those bulky flash drives that end up losing or forgetting. Finally an USB flash drive that you can hold onto with no hassle. Revolutionary size and an amazing price make the Super Stick the ultimate buy for a USB flash drive.

It’s as easy as any flash drive to use. Simply plug it in, Vista sees it, loads the drivers, and it appears as a removable drive.
I copied about 500MB to it, half of the files were 30MB each, the other half about 1MB each. The total copy took 2 minutes, 15 seconds. By comparison, my Corsair Flash Voyager GT, the fastest drive I’ve ever used, took less than a third of that. Keep in mind that the Corsair is the fastest drive I’ve seen tested, costs almost double what the KingMax does for a comparable capacity, and is physically about 12 times larger than the KingMax. I enabled ReadyBoost on it, and it started and worked just fine.

I had seen all the pictures, and yea, it looks small, but you’re just not prepared for how small until you actually see it with your own eyes. All other drives I’ve seen have the metal guide that helps them fit into the USB port. This drive is so small, it can’t use that guide. Instead, it simply slides into the larger slot in the USB port and is small enough that it doesn’t need extra support. It is 1/2″ wide, by 1 3/8″ long, by 1/16″ thick. It doesn’t matter what it weighs, it’s so little you couldn’t tell if you were holding one or ten.

I took a couple pictures of my own:

If you’re looking for a fast drive to run applications from, this probably isn’t the best choice. If you want something small, that will fit almost anywhere, and has a lot of WOW factor, then get yourself the Kingmax. They come in different capacities, including:

• 1GB
• 2GB
• 4GB

The most difficult part of using this drive is figuring out how not to loose it!