Kingston MobileLite Duo 3C Review

USB can be extremely useful due to its universal standards across the manufacturers, however, the connector itself may causing quite a lot of confusion to general consumers. Not to mention when you are trying to access to certain data on a microSD card only to find that you're stuck with a device without SD card slot or wrong USB connector.

In this review, we are going to take a look at the Kingston MobileLite Duo 3C USB 3.1 Gen 1 microSD reader. This is a special reader where it supports dual interface - USB Type-A and USB Type-C, both capable of delivering USB 3.1 Gen 1 speed.

Product Highlights:

• Interface: USB 3.1 Gen 1 (Type-A & Type-C)
• Supported card formats: microSD, microSDHC UHS-I, microSDXC UHS-I
• Casing material: Aluminium
• Warranty: 2 years limited warranty

Packaging

A typical packaging just like any other USB flash drives on the market. The reader is securely fitted into the plastic enclosure with rigid cardboard envelope.

This illustration perfectly showcased the use of the MobileLite Duo 3C microSD card reader. The USB Type-C interface is not just suitable for smartphones, it is also useful for the new MacBook and MacBook Pro owners where the laptop lacks the USB Type-A port and SD card slot.

What's included in the box is the reader itself and a lace.

The lace allows you to secure the cap to the reader with some room for the cap removal.

In this review, we will be using the provided Kingston latest Gold series microSDXC card with UHS-I Class 3 speed. It has a capacity of 64GB.

Slotting the microSD card into the reader. The body of the card reader is made of aluminium alloy and it gives the user a solid and premium impression. The downside, however, is that the reader itself will become uncomfortably hot while plugged in.

It works just like a regular USB flash drive.

With Type-C interface, you can now access any content in your microSD card from a phone without having the need to pop out the SIM or microSD tray.

Real World Usage

Read Speed

The Kingston Gold series microSDXC U3 is promised to have 90 MBps read and 40 MBps write speed.

Write Speed

As you can see, the reader itself has no problem keeping up with the card's potential.

Final Thoughts

The Kingston MobileLite Duo 3C is an excellent accessory for content creators. If you fly drones or operates action cams, you will appreciate how easy it is to access the videos and photos you shot directly from your mobile devices.

Official selling price in Malaysia has not been decided at the time of writing of this review. So we can't say anything regarding whether the pricing is great or too expensive.

Pros:

• Excellent build quality
• USB Type-A and Type-C connectors
• Can be used as USB flash drive
• USB 3.1 Gen 1 speed

Cons:

• Metal body gets uncomfortably hot while in use

Kingston Gold microSD UHS-I Class 3 (U3) 64 GB Review

Kingston has recently introduced the new Gold series microSD cards to replace their older standard non-Gold series UHS-I U3 microSD memory cards. It has high read/write performance which allows you to shoot 4K videos up to 30fps and 1080p videos up to 120fps. Therefore, it is perfect for content creators who are looking for a good memory card for action cameras and drones.

Read on to find out more.

Product Highlights:

• Capacity: 16GB | 32GB | 64GB
• Class: microSDXC UHS-I Class 3
• Read: 90MB/s
• Write: 45MB/s
• Warranty: Lifetime

Packaging

The Kingston Gold microSDXC UHS-I Class 3 comes in a typical cardboard envelope packaging.

Closer Look

The microSD card comes with a microSD to SD adapter in case if you want to use it in other devices that accept the standard SD card. Take note that the 64GB variant comes preformatted in exFAT file system. It allows files larger than 4GB to be stored on the card compared to the older FAT32.

Synthetic Benchmark

We took the card for a few rounds of quick spin on some synthetic benchmark tools - CrystalDiskMark on Windows and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on Mac OS.

For some unknown reason, CrystalDiskMark is showing a slower write speed than what Kingston promises. Now, don't jump the gun because we are not experiencing the slow down when using it in real life. More onto that later.

On Mac OS, the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test clearly shows that the write speed is a lot more than just 18 MB/s.

Real World Usage

Read speed

Moving onto the actual real-life usage, we are actually getting the speed as promised.

Write speed

The write speed even goes slightly further beyond what has been presented in the datasheet of 45MB/s.

Final Thoughts

Apart from the weird CrystalDiskMark benchmark result, the real-life result has been very positive especially the read/write speed meets and exceeds our expectation. Unless you're getting the latest GoPro HERO6 that capable of shooting 4K60 and 1080p240, otherwise, for 45MB/s write speed, it is a great choice to start for 4K videos at 30fps and 1080p videos at 120fps.

Official selling price in Malaysia has not been decided at the time of writing of this review. So we can't say anything regarding whether the pricing is great or too expensive.

Pros

• Meeting the expected performance - 90MB/s Read; 45MB/s Write
• Lifetime warranty

Cons

• 45MB/s write speed is a bit slow for UHS-I Class 3 (U3) card

Kingston Announces Latest Addition of 4GB and 8GB Variant To Its DataTraveler 2000 Lineup

Kingston continues the IronKey brand and tradition of delivering FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified solutions to customers who need the highest level of encryption and security with its latest addition of 4GB and 8GB capacity sizes variant to its family of DataTraveler 2000®, FIPS-197 certified encrypted USB Flash drives. 

Just like the existing DataTraveler 2000 drives, both 4GB and 8GB variant will offer the same 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption and PIN protection with access through an onboard alphanumeric keypad. 

With the addition of 4GB and 8GB capacity sizes to the DataTraveler 2000 line, Kingston has a broad range of solutions designed for the highest levels of government use to enterprises and organizations of all sizes: 

• IronKey™ S1000 (Standard or Managed) – the ultimate security encrypted USB Flash drive – is designed specifically to meet the strictest standards and most demanding data-protection needs of sensitive military, government and enterprise information. Capacities: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB

• IronKey D300 (Standard or Managed) – includes an advanced level of encryption and tamper-evident security that builds on the features that made IronKey well-respected in safeguarding sensitive information. Capacities: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB

• DataTraveler 4000G2 (Management ready) – offers affordable business-grade security to safeguard 100-percent of confidential data. Capacities: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB

• DataTraveler Vault Privacy (Standard or Managed) – provides affordable business-grade security, protecting 100-percent of data stored; also available with optional and anti-virus. Capacities: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB

Just like the rest of Kingston’s full line of encrypted DataTraveler and IronKey USBs, the DataTraveler 2000 too is backed by a five-year warranty, free technical support and legendary Kingston reliability. 

For more information visit www.kingston.com.

Kingston Upcoming UV500 Series SSD Will Feature Marvell's Latest 4-Channel Controller

Kingston today announced over 6 million SSD units between the Kingston and HyperX lines have been shipped worldwide featuring Marvell controllers. The feat was accomplished in just over two years as the HyperX Predator PCIe SSD in February 2015 was the company’s first SSD to ship utilizing a Marvell controller. Marvell’s 88SS9293 controller provides lightning fast, next generation SSD performance making HyperX Predator PCIe SSD a must have for system-builders and enthusiasts.

The Marvell’s 88SS1074 four-channel controller powered UV400 SSD was released in May of 2016, as Kingston aims to provide users of all level the benefits of high-performance storage. As the product range evolves later this year, Kingston will launch its first 3D NAND-enabled SSD utilizing Marvell’s newest 88SS1074 full turnkey (FTK) solution, the UV500 series SSD. The UV500 will be available in 2.5”, M.2 and mSATA form factors to cater users with different needs. While it is designed for mainstream users, the UV500 SSD too has 256-bit AES encryption and TCG Opal 2.0 enabled to cater the needs of enterprise users.

“Marvell is proud of the success in our collaboration with Kingston, and is excited to be extending it with our first in-house developed FTK solution on our 88SS1074 controller,” said Nigel Alvares, VP of SSD & Enterprise Storage Marketing, Storage Group, Marvell. “Kingston’s UV500 will be able to offer industry-leading 3D NAND performance, endurance, data integrity and reliability using our third generation of NANDEdge™ technology, the industry’s most advanced low-density parity check (LDPC) error correction platform available, and integrated in all of our latest SATA, SAS and PCIe controllers.” 

“We are happy with the work we’ve achieved with the Marvell team to deliver higher performance and quality products to our customers; and, to have reached such a mark like 6 million SSDs shipped in such a short time,” said Kingston. “We’re looking to keep that ‘units shipped’ number growing with this next generation drive series utilizing 3D NAND and Marvell’s full turnkey solution. UV500 will deliver excellent performance and reliability for both consumer and system builder users.”

For more information please visit http://www.kingston.com

Kingston Server Premier DDR4 2666MT/s Registered DIMMS Receive Validation on Intel Purley Platform

Kingston, the independent world leader in memory products, today announced its 32GB, 16GB and 8GB Server Premier DDR4-2666 Registered DIMMs have received validation on the Intel Purley Platform, featuring the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family (formerly known as “Skylake-SP”). A link to the validation page can be found here. This validation also marks the launch of Kingston’s new Server Premier product line, which is focused on the latest server architectures making their debut in 2017. Kingston’s new Server Premier builds on a legacy of class-leading server memory quality that target system builders, SMB and data centers with a fully locked build solution for guaranteed consistency. 

Kingston’s Purley-validated Server Premier modules are specifically engineered to unleash the power of Intel’s new six-channel server microarchitecture, without memory frequency clock down restrictions experienced in previous platforms. At 2666MT/s — the next-generation performance frequency for DDR4 memory — each DIMM provides peak bandwidth of 21.3GB/s. When grouped for multi-channel performance, this provides a significant boost in performance for today’s memory intensive server applications.

Kingston Server Premier is a simplified portfolio of server memory products that target the specific requirements of data center and Cloud customers as well as business customers, system integrators and SMBs. Server Premier features include:

• Locked Bill of Materials (BOM)
• Part Change Notifications (PCN) of 45-90 days
• Server platform validation
• Intel PCSD server qualification
• Leading server motherboard manufacturer qualification
• Starting speeds at DDR4-2400 and 2666
• Lifetime warranty
• Industry-leading service and support

“We are proud to introduce Server Premier as a simplified set of memory part numbers with broad or multi-platform compatibility,” said Kingston. “With Server Premier, customers can expect the same degree of reliability from Kingston’s rigorous testing, performance and support that have made us the memory of choice powering the world’s data centers.”

Server Premier is part of the company’s complete family of enterprise memory solutions for the data center. Kingston’s server SSD lineup includes:

• DC400: a SATA SSD that offers consistent application performance and low latency over a wide range of read/write workloads for quality of service (QoS) minded customers. Features standard and user-adjustable overprovisioning to improve random IOPS 

• DCP1000: a Gen 3.0 x8 PCIe NVMe SSD that delivers up to 1.25M IOPS from a single device with ultra-low transactional latency and high throughput. This SSD is currently under customer evaluation in APAC region

• DCU1000: Gen 3.0 x4 U.2 PCIe NVMe SSD delivering over 700K IOPS. This U.2 SSD is currently in customer evaluation and proof-of-concept stage

Server Premier memory and Kingston enterprise SSDs give customers complete end-to-end data performance solutions for the data center. The combination of the two is ideal for HPC (high-performance computing), artificial intelligence, virtualization, Cloud, big data and database applications; as well as the media and entertainment industry.

Kingston Unveils Its Latest USB Type-C microSD Card Reader

Kingston, the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the launch of its newest card reader, MobileLite Duo 3C. The microSD card reader features a dual-interface to work with both USB Type-A and Type-C ports, as it is specifically made for devices with USB Type-C ports. 

MobileLite Duo 3C is compliant with the USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB 3.0) specification and offers fast transfer speeds to quickly transfer or offload videos, photos and other large files. The device reads microSD / SDHC / SDXC, UHS-I and supports the latest card speeds. With its compact metallic form factor MobileLite Duo 3C easily fits in a backpack, purse or pocket to always have on hand.

MobileLite Duo 3C is compatible with newer and older systems. It supports the latest USB Type-C devices as well as notebooks that use USB Type-A. 

'USB Type-C is getting more popular and our new card reader is ideal for personal or professional use; and, with its rugged, lightweight design it can go wherever it’s needed.", said Kingston.

MobileLite Duo 3C is backed by a two-year warranty, free technical support and legendary Kingston reliability. For more information visit www.kingston.com.