Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate G3 Review

Once upon a time, the Kingston DataTraveler was their best drive. The best drive on the market, if my memory serves me right. Now, at the third generation, the Kingston DataTraveler G3 falls quite far behind its predecessors. It’s still a good drive, mind you. Better than the average of the market, but it is not what you would expect from Kingston.

At an average of 160 mbps read and 30 mbps write, this USB stands overpriced at what I’ve seen at about £50, which is quite high, but thinking that you’re buying the brand might offset a bit of the costs.

Technically, this drive is  worse than the G2, and that’s not debatable. It has pretty good read/write, as stated, but it’s not state of the art. Below average in random 4K read and write, it’s really saved by the design : the classical ” full metal Kingston ” which should already be a standard. It has a retractable cap, which might seem an advantage to some, but to me it’s not ok as long as it is not fully enclosed : all manner of contaminants can enter it, dust being the least of my worries in this field.

All in all, I’ve been pretty tough on this one because it’s Kingston and I’ve had some expectations. Obviously, it falls quite short of those, but it is still a good drive.