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Impressions

The Rally feels extremely svelte. It's metal casing and matte black paint has a much more proffesional feel in your hand over competing flash drives on the market. Its translucent plastic trim looks good with the off white logo's on the cap and body. The small size of the device is another striking feature as though there are alot of flash drives on the market, there aren't many that allow you to plug them in to a crowded USB hub without first unplugging the devices surrounding the target port. It has a small, blue LED that lights up when the drive is in use, but its brightness is unimpressive to say the least. The blue theoretically would match the blue hue emanating from many modern cases, but the solid green of my Sandisk Cruzer looks cleaner.

The overall finish of the drive is fantastic, the problems arise with the fit. Though the plastic and metal pieces line up very nicely, the cap when in place does not fit squarely on to the drive. The problem can be made out just barely in images on OCZ's product page, and this poor fit really doesn't leave the same impression of quality as the build materials lend.

The cap being seperate is another issue as well. Though there aren't many drives that eschew the cap for some other form of integrated plug protection, the least OCZ could have done was package the drive with a replacement cap for when the first one inevitably gets lost. The cap does not stick to the back of the drive as some companies' products (like Sandisk's Cruzer line) do, making it even easier for someone to misplace the cap.

Features wise, the OCZ is decidedly barebones. Instead of delivering extra features that people may or may not use, the OCZ comes bundled with nothing but its high transfer rates. Where Kingston packages security and boot programs with its fairly speedy drives, OCZ provides no extra software for business professionals. This limits the OCZ drive to average consumers who may need fast speeds for moving music and video, or for gamers looking for the fastest, thinnest, and slickest package to move demo installers and game files. There is also a certain allure to having matching brand system memory and USB key, especially when it is as formidable a name as OCZ.