The ubiquitous USB flash drive doesn’t have to be boring. Yes, we have a huge assortment of drives that fundamentally look the same, but Frohne is aiming to stand out from the crowd. One such product is the Florida Key. It’s a 4GB USB drive that is shaped, well, like a key.
This way, you can easily attach it to your keychain, giving you access to some portable storage no matter where life may take you. Over at a friend’s house and he has pictures he wants to give you? No problem. Visiting with a colleague and need to save some important PDF documents? You can do that too. A little bit of storage is always close at hand.
Style and Design
Taking a look at the overall design, you’ll find that the Frohne Florida Key has essentially the same dimensions as a regular key, like the one you might have for your house. It feels reasonably well built and is quite stiff, so it should be able to stand up to usual wear and tear.
You’ll also notice from the picture at the top that there is a mini ruler on the drive, giving you 2cm of measurement. I can’t see how this would be particularly useful under most circumstances, but it’s something.
One feature that did bug me, though, was how the actual USB connector was designed. Frohne went with the “slim” design for the USB connector, but the two sides raise up. This results in two rather sharp edges that could easily start carving holes in your pockets or bags. This is supposed to be a “feature” for cutting open thin boxes and packages, but I feel it’s more troublesome than it’s worth.
Performance Benchmark
Yes, performance matters. While I certainly didn’t expect the Florida Key to give me the 120MB/s range read times that USB 3.0 flash drives are able to provide, I was expecting it to perform within the range of most conventional USB 2.0 drives.
When I reviewed the Kingston DataTraveler 150 a long while back, I achieved an average transfer rate of about 29MB/s. The Frohne Florida Key didn’t even come close with a read time of 11.76MB/s and a write time of 4.76MB/s. That’s usable for smaller files, but transferring anything substantial will feel quite slow.
The Price of Convenience?
The Frohne Florida Key is different and it looks like it could be great for the road, accompanying your travel surge protector and ultrabook PC. However, you do pay a price for the added style and convenience.
You pay in terms of performance, as described above. You pay in terms of design, regarding that sharp edges by the USB connector. And yes, you also pay in terms of price. The 4GB Florida Key has a suggested retail price of $73.99. There are tons of 4GB drives available for $5 to $10 that are faster and just as portable. For these reasons, I can’t recommend the Florida Key.
Do You Want to Win It?
I have enough USB flash drives kicking around already, so I’d rather this Florida Key not go to waste.
Leave a comment below with what you look for in a USB drive and I’ll draw a random winner in one week’s time. This contest is open to anywhere in the world, assuming that you have reasonable access to postal service.
UPDATE (7/17/12): The winner has been randomly selected. Thanks again to everyone who entered.
Could always use a USB key, especially one that’s holds more than my current one 🙂
I always just buy the cheapest flash drives out there. They always end up missing, given away or just unreturned.
This florida key would be one that I would make sure stays with me.
I only have three keys and this would be a great addition. Have to make sure never to use it to start my car :/
I don’t look at performance…just something that works.
Ah, the key to my heart: storage.
Oh, and bacon. A bacon USB drive would be great.
It would be nice to have another Flash Drive, especially since I live in “Florida” and can get to the “Keys” in 6 hours, 34 mins. It’s only 375.7 miles from the house via – I-75 S and U.S. 1 S.
With all that in my favor I believe I should be the hands down, logical choice to win the flash drive.
A USB key should be reliable! Read/write errors are the worst and no one likes having to format a key causing the lose of important data (hopefully you have a copy of your computer). It should, of course, also be stylish, like in the form of a key.
*loss
A USB key should be reliable!
What is this made out of? Aluminum or stainless steel?
The website says it’s made from Inox, which is apparently a synonym for stainless steel.
i look for the capacity which is offered at a given price and buy the cheapest one since its for my personal use only…
I like this key very much and its very useful also. Thanks for sharing this valuable information with us.
There are several ‘key’ shaped USB drives out there that will work on your keychain
I like the concept, but not the price – Amazon has some other key-shaped usb drives that fit on keyrings
Hi, I use a lot of USB sticks and I am just sick of trying them since it’s hard to get there specs written on the box. I always need to carry with me data and be able to transfer them from 1 computer to another (Mac and PC). I like the concept of the Key! So, Thumbs up! Cheers!
Reliability is the only thing I’m looking for
Looks rad. Design is def something i look for, this is fresh
I look for USBs that won’t get lost. Lanyards, cell phone ribbons – and in this case, keychainable!
I went to Madonna concert and they gave me this as free gift.