Leef Magnet 3.0 Pico 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

In the market for a pico flash storage solution? Read on as we take a look at the latest from Leef and see how it operates under our tests.

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Manufacturer: Leef
2 minutes & 12 seconds read time
Leef Magnet 3.0 Pico 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review 99

Typically, pico or small form factor flash drives are few and far between. As of late, however, things seem to be picking up a bit with SuperTalent, PQI, and even Corsair jumping into the market with small form factor solutions.

Leef is one that enjoys creating products catered directly to what customers want. In fact, that pretty much sums up the company motto. Today, we have one of the latest products from Leef in house in the form of the Magnet 3.0. The Magnet 3.0 is a USB 3.0 flash drive, with capacities ranging from 16GB to 64GB, based on the traditional capped design, though Leef has thrown a twist on this design.

Compatibility of the Magnet 3.0 extends to modern Windows operating systems and OS X. MSRP for the 16GB capacity in house today is listed at $14.99 with a five-year warranty.

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Above, we have our first look at the Leef Magnet 3.0. As you can, see it's a rather small flash drive. The left end of the drive carries a white LED that shines through the clear plastic to denote activity.

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The backside of the drive carries a "designed in California" stamp.

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Here we have a look at the USB 3.0 port and cap for the drive. If you haven't put it together by now, the Leef Magnet 3.0 is a magnetic capped design where the cap is held to the drive connector by a small, moderately powerful magnet.

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The Leef Magnet 3.0 is factory formatted with the FAT32 file-system. Usable capacity after formatting is 14.9GB.

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Above, we have the results from our testing of the Leef Magnet 3.0. As you can see, the drive does quite well with reads at 100 MB/s, while writes are pretty dismal at just 13 MB/s.

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In our price/performance chart, the Leef landed towards the bottom, just one spot ahead of the SuperTalent Pico. Even with its excellent price, the performance just wasn't enough to bring it further up on the chart.

Like all Leef products, the Magnet 3.0 carries an excellent design along with top-notch build quality. Unfortunately, it seems as if they put the entire budget into the aesthetics of the drive without much left over to go into the performance. Yes, the drive does great with read speed, in fact it touched 100 MB/s, but the write performance is pretty bad. We managed just 13MB/s on a drive that is meant for the USB 3.0 platform.

With that said, not all is lost. The drive would be great for someone that occasionally moves documents or pictures back and forth between PCs, or maybe a movie once in awhile. The fact is simple, if you have the patience to wait out the file transfer to the device, I have no doubt that you will love the Magnet 3.0 because the read performance is more than enough.

MSRP of the 16GB Leef Magnet 3.0 comes in at $14.99 with a five-year warranty. Current market pricing can be found below.

PRICING: You can find the 16GB Leef Magnet 3.0 for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing, but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The 16GB Leef Magnet 3.0 retails for $16.99 at Amazon.

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Leef Magnet 3.0 Pico 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review 100

PRICING: You can find products similar to this one for sale below.

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Tyler joined the TweakTown team in 2013 and has since reviewed 100s of new techy items. Growing up in a small farm town, tech wasn't around, unless it was in a tractor. At an early age, Tyler's parents brought home their first PC. Tyler was hooked and learned what it meant to format a HDD, spending many nights reinstalling Windows 95. Tyler's love and enthusiast nature always kept his PC nearby. Eager to get deeper into tech, he started reviewing.

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