USB flash drives may provide an easy way to copy files to and from a computer and keep them in your pocket. But using a standard flash drive with a phone or tablet can be tricky, since most of those mobile devices lack full-sized USB ports.
The SanDisk Connect line of products tackle this by building WiFi-capabilities into portable storage devices, allowing you to stream content from a flash drive in your bag or pocket to an Android or iOS phone or tablet.
Now SanDisk is expanding its product family with a new model called the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick.
The new Stick is similar in physical size to the older SanDisk Connect Wireless Flash Drive. But while the older model tops out at 64GB of storage, SanDisk offers the new model with up to 128GB of storage.
It also has a new case design, if you care about that kind of thing.
The Wireless Stick works as a standard USB 2.0 flash drive, but it also features 802.11n WiFi and works with devices running Android 4.2 or later, iOS 8.0 or later, or pretty much any WiFi-enabled device with a web browser.
Mobile apps for Android, iOS, and Amazon Fire devices also offer support for automatic photo and video backup.
There’s a built-in battery which should provide up to 4.5 hours of run time when you’re streaming media from the stick.
SanDisk will offer models with 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB of storage with suggested retail prices ranging from $30 to $100 (although Best Buy is showing a $25 price tag for the 16GB model at the moment).
via SanDisk
These are at the physically smaller end of the spectrum of a whole range of similar products from many manufacturers. Most of the larger devices have an SD card slot and a USB flash drive port and a larger battery. Some have a large enough battery to even act as a “charge bank” battery for a phone and the larger ones have enough battery on-board to charge a tablet. Some larger units also support USB hard drives plugged into them. All appear to support SMB/CIFS, newer devices support DLNA streaming, and many support WebDAV (even though often not mentioned in end-user documentation). The only thing unique about these SanDisk devices is the limitation of on-board flash memory, so when it goes bad you throw the entire thing away.
HooToo Tripmate fills this bill for me. Plus it works as a wireless router when you have a hotel room that only has ethernet.
Hey, thanks for sharing! I just ordered one on amazon due to your recommendation.
I have one too and love it. Note, it supports samba – so you can browse your shares like a regular network drive using ES file explorer.