A-Data FP1 Fingerprint Flash Drive

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A-Data FP1 Fingerprint Flash Drive

The FP1 is really more about convenience than performance, and few things are as convenient as swiping your finger. A-Data also throws in FPManager software that takes up 8MB of space on the drive and provides a utility for managing fingerprints, a mail app, an autologin database if you tend to forget usernames and passwords for websites, and a tool that keeps track of your favorites. Picky users will probably want to manage these things on their own, but it's nice to have the built-in capability, especially since the software's footprint is relatively small. The minimal footprint is also important because you can't actually delete the FPManager software from the drive—the FP1's encryption scheme appears to depends on it.

A-Data makes the FP1 available in 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB capacities that carry MSRPs of $24.99, $29.99, and $39.99, respectively. As one might expect, those prices are higher than what you'd pay for a standard thumb drive of equivalent capacity. Regular 2GB thumb drives, for example, can be had for less than half the price of the 2GB FP1.

So fingerprint authentication doesn't come cheap, and on-the-fly encryption isn't particularly fast. Those considerations will likely turn off PC enthusiasts perfectly capable of using free software to encrypt the contents of faster flash drives. But the FP1 is still dead easy to use, and that makes it perfect for mainstream users who don't know how to encrypt files on their own or those who just don't bother to, even if they know they should.