Sony has launched a new line of USB flash drives designed to work with smartphones and tablets as well as PCs. On one end there’s a full-sized USB connector which you can plug into a desktop or notebook. But if you lift the cap, you’ll find it’s hiding a tiny micro USB connector.

Sony USB flash drive for phones

You can plug the micro USB connector into most Android phones or tablets and the drive will show up as external storage, allowing you to copy files to and from your mobile device. Then you can plug the other end of the flash drive into your PC.

In other words, it lets you transfer photos, videos, music, documents, and other files without a USB cable — and you can also use it as extra storage for your mobile device. Going on a long trip? Load up a few movies or albums of music and you can carry them with you and plug in the flash drive when you want to watch or listen.

Sony also offers a free File Manager app which you can download from the Google Play Store since many Android devices don’t actually come with file browsers pre-loaded. You could use a third party file manager, but Sony’s has an option to unmount the drive from within the app, which could come in handy.

The USB 2.0 flash drive will be available in January in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB versions, which will sell for $20, $30, and $63, respectively.

via Sony

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14 replies on “Sony launches USB flash drives for smartphones, tablets”

  1. Shhhhh… Don’t speak about OTG. Otherwise the control freaks at Google etc. will wake up and remove OTG support.

    1. It’s not supported fully on the Nexus devices. It’s removal has already started.

  2. Sadly, recent Nexus models do not support OTG…

    Btw, i am still waiting for the battery case with built in SD slot.

  3. So this solves the problem that phone and mobile OS companies artificially created. Excellent.

  4. Can we turn that into a µSD-card reader instead of having one fixed memory in there? Then I’ll have 3.

    1. I’d like that and it would also make the whole removal of SD card slots from phones seem stupid if small micro-SD card readers for phones get popular.

      Also, these do exist except they’re bigger than this Sony device. They’re from China and usually on eBay. I haven’t actually bought one though because they’re too big for my liking and my current phone has an SD card slot.

  5. Great timing Sony, i was researching micro usb thumb drives only days ago. Love the design but i’ll wait till the prices drop a bit.

  6. I use my USB OTG cable far more than I expected to; however, the added bonus is that I can use ANY drive. I get flash drives as swag all the time so I have dozens laying around. the advantage of the cable is that I can use whatever is lying around. I can even load up my Kingston Wi-Drive with content with it. I see this as useful, but a rather one-trick pony.

    1. Even worse, you’ve got both microUSB and miniUSB to contend with in the wild. They’d need a 3-plug version. Worse yet there’s talk of a 4th “reversable” Type-C USB connector coming out.

      1. Can you tell me what OTG capable devices use mini-USB ports? Thank you.

        There’s also the USB 3.0 micro-USB port if you want USB 3.0 speeds. Good thing it’s compatible with USB 2.0 micro-USB though.

        1. I am not sure of any that use mini-usb. MicroUSB seems to be the dominant standard for that. As for as devices that are MicroUSB OTG compatible… the list list is pretty huge. Even my crappy Sero 7 Lite has the capability. The additional benefit is that both Android and Windows 8.1 tablets can support the same cable. Side benefit.. found out my GS4 can actually use a wired xbox controller through OTG.

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