SanDisk Cruzer Contour

SanDisk today revealed that it has begun shipping the Cruzer Contour, its self-proclaimed unique spin on USB flash drives. Made for a premium feel with glossy black and metal, the drive's signature feature is protection for the USB port that avoids the use of caps or switches: sliding the main body back and forth exposes the connector by itself. The flash stick is also fast with an 18MB/sec write speed twice as fast as any of the company's earlier in-store drives, and is also faster at reading data, reaching 25MB/sec.

Though usable as a typical storage drive, the Contour ships in 4GB and 8GB versions with enough space for preloaded software. U3 smart drive technology lets either capacity automatically load and run several programs without copying them to a PC, including a portable version of Skype, antivirus and password utilities, and the company's internally-made CruzerSync for automatically copying files to the drive.

Both drives are available now in North America at prices of $100 (4GB) and $180 (8GB). Europe will see the drives in July, while Asia will receive them later in August.

By Electronista Staff