The Verbatim Store N' Go Clip-it  may have one of the most unique and creative designs we've seen on a USB flash drive. Plenty of others agree, as Verbatim has received several awards for the design of the aptly named Clip-it. Looking past the brightly colored plastic, the Clip-it still manages to be a pretty decent little USB drive, but value shoppers might want to opt for similarly priced alternatives that offer features like encryption or password protection.

Design and Features
Looking like the lovechild of a paperclip and a stick of gum, the brightly colored Clip-it combines a slim USB drive with the functional form of a paperclip. It's a design that has turned heads and drawn attention since it debuted last year. The clip design has won several well-deserved awards, but we also found that you might not always want to use it as a paper clip. The drive clips securely, even to a single sheet of paper. It's also flexible enough to accommodate a stack of 2-3 business cards, or to use as a geeky tie-clip. It won't be replacing your heavy-duty binder clips, however, as more than a few pages will stress the plastic enough to make you worry about breaking it.

Ignoring the novelty of the plastic clip, the Clip-it is also a handy 4GB USB drive. The drive is very small, measuring just 1.4 by 0.5 by 0.2 inches (HWD) and weighing a miniscule 0.1 ounce. It's about the size of a piece of Trident gum. The only drive we've seen that weighs less or measures smaller is the diminutive Verbatim Tuff 'n' Tiny USB Drive (32GB) ($142.99 direct, 3.5 stars), which takes the minimalist design to the extreme, and pares the USB drive down to nothing but a USB compatible plastic wafer. Like the Tuff 'n' Tiny , the Clip-it is actually small enough that you may lose it if it's not securely clipped to something.

The drive offers 4GB of storage space, but is sold in a pack of three for a street price of $22, coming to $1.83 per GB. Compared with other USB 2.0 drives we've reviewed, which is a few cents above average for an otherwise featureless drive. The current Editors' Choice, the encryption-equipped Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ (8GB) ($14 street, 4 stars) sells for $1.75 per GB, but the Victorinox Swiss Army Slim Flight (4GB) ($40 street, 4 stars) rings up at a pricier $10 per GB. The Verbatim Tuff 'n' Tiny has a minimalist design similar to that of the Clip-it, but is $4.47 per GB. And finally, for the best price in storage, buy in bulk—the 128GB Kingston DataTraveler R500 ($200 street, 3.5 stars) is a mere $1.56 per GB.

Performance
The drive also comes without the clutter of preinstalled software, just 4GB of open space, preformatted to FAT32. As a result, the Clip-it works with Windows (Windows 7, Vista, and XP), Mac OS X (10.5 to current), and Linux.

In timed data transfer tests, the Store N' Go Clip-it had transfer speeds of 15MB/sec (read) and 6MB/sec (write). Compared with other USB 2.0 drives, this is middling performance, slower than the Kingston DataLocker+ (8GB) which had data transfer rates of 24MBps (read) and 9.6MBps(write) and lagging behind the Victorinox Swiss Army Slim Flight , which has a faster read speed (24MBps) but a similar write speed (6MBps).

All in all, the Verbatim Store N' Go Clip-it is ideal for the user that wants a small drive for carrying schoolwork and other files, but also wants something cute and unique. The price isn't unreasonable, but the design is unique and even adds some functionality for dealing with paper documents. For more value, look at something like the Editors' Choice Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ , which offers encryption and password protection for a similar price per GB.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Verbatim Store N' Go Clip-it USB Drive with several other flash drives side by side.

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