Kingston 16Gb Wi-Drive Portable Wireless Storage Review

Features
Handling
Performance
Verdict
Specification



The Kingston Wi-Drive is a portable wireless storage device for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and is available in 16Gb and 32Gb capacities. Kingston have also released a beta version of their app to use the drive with Android devices.

Kingston 16Gb Wi-Drive Portable Wireless Storage Features

• Portable, wireless storage for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch
• Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11g/n; 30-foot range
• 16Gb / 32Gb
• 4 hour battery life
• Share photos, videos, music and more with up to three users
• One-year warranty

Kingston 16Gb Wi-Drive Portable Wireless Storage Handling

The Wi-Drive can be charged via a wall socket or by USB. To add content you simply connect it to your computer and add files as you would to any external hard drive. When you have added content, disconnect it from your computer and press the power button, it takes around 40 seconds from switching on to being ready. The power button also serves as a battery indicator, green indicates 51%-100% battery charge remaining; amber indicates 25%-50% and red indicates less than 25% remaining. A flashing green power button indicates that the Wi-Drive battery is charging (occurs when using AC power adapter only). To access the content on your iOS device you need to download the free Kingston Wi-Drive app.

The next step is to connect to the device. This is done by going into your iOS device settings and selecting the Wi-Drive from the list of available Wi-Fi networks. This means you are no longer connected to your own Wi-Fi, but you can configure the Wi-Drive to access your Wi-Fi and maintain your internet connection.

Once you are connected you need to open the app on your iOS device. Once opened you will see the Wi-drive at the top of the list. Click this and you now have access your your contents. The local drive is where anything which you save from the drive to your phone will be stored. It is also possible to email files, up to 10mb, from the drive. If you want to delete, email or copy a file from the Wi-Drive, you can do so via the Action menu. Simply select to the file you wish to copy (or delete) and swipe it in either direction, left or right, which reveals a red action button.

Kingston 16Gb Wi-Drive Portable Wireless Storage Performance

If you are trying to open a large file, such as a movie, it can take a few seconds for the video to load, but if you are browsing pictures, you can flick through them as quick as if they were images in your photo album. One problem which was discovered during testing, we had around 9000 images in one folder, if you access it an error message appears. To address this you need to sort your files into sub folders. Within the app, you can't move images onto your iOS device to edit them in apps, which is fairly frustrating, but if you go to your web browser, tap in the IP address and navigate to your image, you can save it to your camera roll from there. This does mean you can only do one at a time.

One major worry with the device is it gets incredibly hot during use, this surely can't be good!?

Value for money

The 16GB device uses embedded flash memory and is currently available for around £40, with the 32GB nearer the £90 mark. The Seagate GoFlex Satellite has a 500Gb capacity and costs £145.00 and the Hitachi G-Connect is also 500Gb but costs around £200. Both these devices use hard drives and aren't as thin as the Kingston Wi-Drive.


Kingston Kingston Wi-Drive With iPhone 4

Kingston 16Gb Wi-Drive Portable Wireless Storage Verdict

The Wi-Drive is a handy solution if you have filled up your iOS devices memory and want to carry around more music, films and pictures. Sadly it's not ideal if you want to transfer a load of images to your device to edit in apps, it's more suited for viewing. The best use during testing was adding videos to watch while travelling. Overall, if you're on a budget and need a some extra storage, the Kingston Wi-Drive is a solution worth considering, but there are better options if you have more money to spend.

Kingston 16Gb Wi-Drive Portable Wireless Storage Pros

Simple way of carrying more media with you
Connects to internet to ensure your device is always connected
Extremely small and light-weight
Can be used by up to three users

Kingston 16Gb Wi-Drive Portable Wireless Storage Cons

Device gets very hot when in use
Can't save images using app to camera roll
Can't handle folders with massive numbers of files in them

FEATURES
HANDLING
PERFORMANCE
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL

Kingston Wi-Drive Specifications

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