Fake Kingston flash drive?

Z

ZA.Schmidt

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Bought a 16gb Kingston DataTraveler flash drive for R300 (not from a shop; from a private person selling them) and the packaging looks a little... tacky, with excessive Chinese. The drive itself looks poor quality and as you can see in the pic, the USB part isn't even straight in the unit.

I found some articles and photos of fake Kingstons online but it doesn't look like them. If it isn't fake I think they do a sh*t job with their stuff.

Anyone know?

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1462/p1010023o.jpg
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2000/p1010021xuc.jpg
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4367/p1010015e.jpg
 
i have a black 4gb kingston flash drive that i got for free, it says 3.99gb storage space, but i know a 4gb flash never gives you that much. so i fill it up with lotsa mp3 files and it just resulted in a corrupted mess. im just gonna wrap it up and give it away as a gift again.
 
Yeah they're fake. My uncle bought a few when he was in Thailand. they were really really cheap,

Think it worked out to like R90 or so each. Needless to say they're built quite poorly.
 
Last edited:
Just checked the other thread and it looks like mine are the same. Will test in a bit and let you know
 
Does it have the laser-etched BOM and Reference numbers on the metal part of the USB connector? Like this:
bom0.jpg


Detail:
bom1.jpg


bom2.jpg


If not, then it's fake... get a refund asap.
 
ZA.Schmidt said:
Bought a 16gb Kingston DataTraveler flash drive for R300 (not from a shop; from a private person selling them) and the packaging looks a little... tacky, with excessive Chinese. The drive itself looks poor quality and as you can see in the pic, the USB part isn't even straight in the unit.

I found some articles and photos of fake Kingstons online but it doesn't look like them. If it isn't fake I think they do a sh*t job with their stuff.

Anyone know?

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1462/p1010023o.jpg
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2000/p1010021xuc.jpg
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4367/p1010015e.jpg
Click to expand...

There is currently lots of fake Kingston, Sony , Transcend flash drives on the market , you need to be really careful who you purchasing these days , as many of the drives we’ve seen even thought they boot up and register 8gb or 16gb they actually 2gb drives , rather be safe and purchase these drives from reputable resellers , You might pay more but at least you know you getting the genuine article , As profit margins on Flash drives are between 3-5% these days for whole sale and about 10-15% for retail , If the price is too good to be true , it is probably a fake.

From the picture I see on this thread these don’t look like the Kingston DataTraveller we import from Kingston UK , and I can safely tell you that Kingston assembles a very high quality finished product not like the one on these pictures , GO insist on refund and rather buy the right stuff ,
 
Esquire said:
From the picture I see on this thread these don’t look like the Kingston DataTraveller we import from Kingston UK , and I can safely tell you that Kingston assembles a very high quality finished product not like the one on these pictures , GO insist on refund and rather buy the right stuff ,
Click to expand...

+1

It seems that the finish on some of these fakes is a bit dodgy, particularly the colouring and the plastic - it looks very "cheap" after you remove it from the "retail" packaging.

Esquire - would you be able to maybe take some decent photos of the genuine retail-packaged article to post on these threads - maybe this will assist the MyBB members in avoiding the fakes, if they can see the differences in the packaging?
 
howardb said:
Does it have the laser-etched BOM and Reference numbers on the metal part of the USB connector? Like this:
bom0.jpg


Detail:
bom1.jpg


bom2.jpg


If not, then it's fake... get a refund asap.
Click to expand...

My Data Traveller 16GB doesn't have the etching and it's definitely a genuine product. I think it's only specific models that have it.
 
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