SanDisk Cruzer Contour USB Flash Drive Announced

Posted by Admin on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 05:37 pm:

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Cruzer Contour's Unique Slider Brings Out and Hides the USB Connector, With High Capacity, Fast Transfer Rates and Strong Security on the Inside

SanDisk® Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today announced availability of Cruzer® Contour™, a sleek USB flash drive that brings together high-end design and blazing speed. Much like a fine wristwatch, Cruzer Contour is a luxury personal accessory as well as a piece of functional technology.

What especially sets apart Cruzer Contour, with its glossy black top and silver metallic body, is the drive's unique sliding USB connector. Using a thumb to slide the top of Cruzer Contour back and forth brings out or hides the connector. There's no visible switch, and no cap to lose.

"Cruzer Contour is a showpiece of innovative design, bringing a new look to the category of USB flash drives," said Roy Ramati, vice president of marketing for the USB business unit at SanDisk. "And the beauty here is more than skin deep, with Cruzer Contour's expansive storage capacity, fast data transfer, strong security and generous bundle of pre-loaded software."

Available in 4 gigabyte (GB)(1) and 8 GB capacities, Cruzer Contour's features include:

• Design. The slider requires nothing more than two flicks of the thumb. Moving the top back and then forward brings out the connector, while moving the top forward and then back pulls in the connector. When Cruzer Contour is connected to a computer, blue LEDs illuminate the word "Cruzer" on the drive's top.
• Performance. Cruzer Contour delivers a write speed of 18 MB/sec(2), double the performance of SanDisk's previous top-of-the-line retail model. Read speed for Cruzer Contour is two-thirds faster at 25 MB/sec(2). Cruzer Contour also supports the ReadyBoost feature in Microsoft Windows Vista, which taps unused storage space on USB flash drives to improve system performance - especially when several applications are running simultaneously.
• Pre-installed software. Cruzer Contour offers U3 technology for running applications directly from the drive, without those applications having to be installed on the computer. U3-compatible software provided free with the drive includes the PC phone service Skype™, SanDisk's own CruzerSync™ for synchronizing files between a PC and the drive, the password manager program SignupShield™ Passwords from Protecteer, and a trial version of anti-virus software. Just for fun, there are two titles from Big Fish Games: Sudoku and Mahjong Towers Eternity.
• Security. Cruzer Contour provides password protection through U3, backed by AES hardware encryption. This is much stronger than the software-based security available on some USB flash drives. With password protection turned on, Cruzer Contour owners have less to worry about if the drive is lost or stolen.

Pricing and Availability
Cruzer Contour became available in the United States in mid-June, and will become available in Asia in early July and in Europe in August.

The 4GB model has a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $99.99 in the U.S., and the 8GB model has a U.S. MSRP of $189.99.

SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the world's largest supplier of flash data storage card products, using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas, California, and has operations worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the U.S.

(1) 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes.

(2) Based on SanDisk internal testing; performance may be lower depending upon host device. 1 megabyte (MB) = 1 million bytes.