With the introduction of USB 3.0 we finally got rid of the 30Mb/s real world performance cap imposed on USB 2.0 thumb stick drives. However it quickly became apparent that not all USB 3.0 sticks are created equally, some even doing worse than high performance USB 2.0 sticks... marketing at work.

Performance chart of the same file copied TO and FROM the Pico drive.

Luckily we can report that the USB 3.0 label on the Super Talent Pico drive is not purely marketing; the little engine that could delivers sustained read speeds over 90Mb/s during our tests, while it's not the fastest on the market, it's definitely not slow. Writing speeds are about 1/3 of that number, averaging at 27-29mb/s on a good day.

If you liked the original Pico drive, the new USB 3.0 version is a worthy successor, offering triple reading speeds and doubling writing speeds, while maintaining its compact size and overall looks.  Price wise we're look at ~$50 at Amazon for the 32Gb version, but if you shop around a bit $40 and lower is possible.

Looking at the competition, the Super Talent Pico comes at $10 premium, for which you get higher write speeds, but slower read speeds. If you're looking for a spacy yet compact USB stick to write tons of data to at regular intervals the extra write speeds will be felt. If however reading media from the stick is your primary concern, there are faster alternatives at lower prices available.

We'd like to thank Heather from Super Talent for giving us a chance to test drive their latest products.