Mobile devices are great. All of us use them in the form of phones, MP3/4 players, tablets laptops etc. The problem with a large majority of them is that they never seem to have enough storage to do everything you want. To combat this trend some manufacturers have started dropping in large capacity HDDs, but to keep inside the expected power curve these drives are very slow and end up slowing the system down as well. The alternative of dropping in a Solid State Drive can speed things up, but can also leave you with limited storage space unless you spend a ton of money. Kingston came up with an interesting little concept that takes care of the storage problem and also gives you some high-speed storage that you can move between your portable device and your desktop. So let’s take a look at the 512GB Kington HyperX Predator USB 3.0 thumbdrive.
Value -At $954 the predator could have priced itself right out of the market. Although it is quick and can certainly meet a few needs its cost is far beyond what it should be even for what it is. At $900 you can almost buy 2 512GB SSDs and can even buy a 960GB SSD with some money left over for a good memory upgrade. This is pretty sad considering this is product should be marketed as an accessory and not a primary product. We do know that the technology behind the Predator is expensive and this is what is keeping the price on the Predator high and will also keep it out of the hand of consumers.
Conclusion -Kingston’s 512GB Predator USB 3.0 drive is a well designed and built product. It has solid performance and does fit into a certain niche that needs storage and speed. Unfortunately, the $900 price tag is going to prevent many from picking this up. There are less expensive alternatives including purchasing larger capacity SATA 3.0 SSDs which can replace internal drives. We wish that we could say something different about the Predator, but we can’t until the price comes down to something more reasonable. Kingston is sure to have a plan for bringing down the cost of these especially considering that they are looking to release a 1TB version soon. For what it is worth the Predator does perform well and we can see a place for it the mobile professional’s bag one the prices do stabilize, just not right now.
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