PQI Intelligent Stick 2.0

Pros: Tiny size. Very good price. Cons: So small it's easy to lose. Bottom Line: Beyond its tiny size, the PQI Intelligent Stick 2.0 is undistinguished. If you desire a tiny flash drive, look instead to the StealthSurfer, a somewhat more useful tool that shares the same design.

As flash drives get smaller and smarter, we're reminded of the law of diminishing returns: If one factor is increased while the others remain constant, the overall return is likely to decrease at a certain point. There is a point at which a gadget can be too small, and this seems to be happening in the flash drive market. We don't need them to get any smaller, and in fact, being too small can be a serious problem. The PQI Intelligent Stick 2.0 is the smallest, thinnest, lightest flash drive on the market. It weighs about 0.2 ounces and measures just 0.1 inches thick—truly a feat of engineering.

At heart, the Intelligent Stick is a standard flash-memory chip encased in plastic. To achieve the tiny size, the company modified the standard USB plug, removing the metal wrapper that usually shrouds the interface (see photo). The connector still works in the same way, of course, and actually seems easier to plug into a PC's hidden ports (like those on the back) than a standard plug. Additionally, the Intelligent Stick won't hang far off the back of your computer or interfere with your keyboard if you've got USB ports in the front of your PC.

There are more problems with this shape than benefits, however. For starters, it's much easier to misplace, as are tiny SecureDigital memory cards and diminutive XD cards. To address this issue, the company sells plastic travel cases and transparent adapters that convert it to the size of a standard flash drive, eliminating any advantage of the stick's miniscule size.

Beyond its size, the PQI Intelligent Stick 2.0 is undistinguished, so after you've used it once, set it aside, and subsequently lost it, you won't remember why you wanted it anyway. The company describes it as "a new generation flash memory card!" but we're not sure exactly what earns it this hyperbole. If you must have the smallest flash drive on the market, look instead to the StealthSurfer, a slightly more useful tool. It has the same shape and size as the Intelligent Stick but includes software to let you browse the Web privately.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Sync.