What is it?
This device is the very first 16gb Ultra-Wideband device on the market. It’s basically a hard drive with fingerprint reader and fast data transfer technology. Now lets get into the detail on it!

The Looks
On first impressions this device looks very tactile and fun with it’s curvy edges high definition screen and it’s fingerprint reader it’s a pretty impressive little geek device. Then you start looking down the side of it and you find a mini USB port, a standard USB port and a removable USB flash drive. All in all a shiny, stylish little hardware package!

Usability
When I first turned the device on it was pretty easy to figure out…. with only one button and a fingerprint reader you start off by thinking how on earth will this work… but actually it’s really intuitive. The device gets you to register your fingerprint with it to start with and then goes on to the main menu. To move through the menu you swipe up/down, left & right with the fingerprint reader. You can also use the button to go back to the main menu when in a side menu (just in case you hadn’t figured out the sideways movement for selecting into and out of the menu) and the same once you are on the main menu use the button to select that option. It really couldn’t be simpler. However just watch out for holding the button down for too long as it will turn the device on and off and also enable data transfer to and from the device to the removable USB key.

Pairing the device up with another Leyio was also pretty easy as you just hold down the button after selecting an item on the device i.e. a picture or video and the other person does the same and holds down the button on their device. The icon changes to show the connection and then with a flick of the wrist it goes across.

Speed
Now I bet you are really wondering about the speed of this Ultra Wide-Band device… 10MB/s is the advertised speed and it doesn’t disappoint at all. I so want someone to integrate this technology into a mobile phone. However something worth noting is that UWB isn’t yet an approved IETF standard and has had a pretty rough ride. So far the FCC have said yes to it and Ofcom have also agreed to it as a standard however other countries standards bodies are against the idea so there doesn’t appear to be a global solution to date. Now the question here is, is UWB here to stay or are competing technologies going to win out like the HD- DVD vs BlueRay scenario. Lets hope that this little device doesn’t end up in the middle of this battle.

Reliability
Whilst using the device we didn’t have any failed transfers or anything. The only real reliability issue I had when using the device was false negatives on the fingerprint reader but that was down to me forgetting which finger I registered 2 days earlier. As such just remember which finger you registered… once I’d gotten over that bit it was all good. To date I’ve not had anyone else manage to get into the device… maybe I should give it to a security expert to see what they think about the security of it… And guess what I know just the person!

Mr Security says: “This device gives the illusion of security however a fingerprint reader gives the illusion of security however it is just an identification feature and not an authentication feature. To do that this device would also need a pin to be secure. However identification is better than nothing.”

Size
The Leyio is quite thick but isn’t all that heavy, it is a nice weight in your hand and isn’t a huge addition to carry around. To be honest I’m likely to carry mine around as a useful little USB hdd with the added use of being able to view the files and folders on it. It fits nicely in all my bags and I loved the Apple style packaging too.

Battery Life
So far the battery life has been pretty good it’s really not been that much of a problem. I’ve had the devices for a week and still haven’t had to charge either of them. When you’re doing data transfer onto the device it’s plugged into the USB and as such is charging at the same time so that’s all nice and easy really.

Areas for Improvement
I love the design of the device and the look and feel of it but there were a few things that felt like they were missing in this little device. Firstly you couldn’t read the V Cards that were stored on the device. Secondly you couldn’t view pictures on it. Also storing music and video is all well and good in such a small device but what happened to putting in an audio jack so that people can play them? I loved the idea of this device and I can definitely see me using it as a quick to carry around storage device with a basic UI but I’d love to see a mobile phone company get in touch with Leyio and integrating the technology used here into a sleak mobile phone with good storage capacity.

The area where this device unfortunately falls down is really the price. At £149 it’s an expensive hdd with funky data transfer on it and unless the price comes down it is going to be one of those devices that people are going to have to look cool but won’t really be something for the average user. I can see the geeks and girl geeks having fun swapping files at our events but it’s not something that people will use as an every day device.

Curious and want to see it in action then click on our video below:


About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

Web | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | More Posts (288)
This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.