In our last OTG, or hybrid flash drive, review of the UD320 from ADATA, I commented how I would like to have a little more write performance for transferring movies to the drive for viewing on my phone. Leef may just have the solution to this with their offering, the Bridge 3.0
The Bridge 3.0 from Leef is not like the standard OTG flash drives. While most use a basic USB 2.0 connection, this new drive utilizes USB 3.0 connectivity on the full connector and USB 2.0 for the OTG setup. The drive is designed as a slider but not in the conventional manner. With the Bridge 3.0, we have what I like to call an open face design.
Compatibility of the Bridge 3.0 extends to modern Windows operating systems and OS X. Leef manages a list of supported Android devices on their website. MSRP of the 16GB Bridge 3.0 is set at $19.99 with a five-year warranty.
The Leef Bridge 3.0 carries branding on the backside of the drive.
On the top of the drive, you can see the open faced sliding design. The center button controls the locking and unlocking of the sliding mechanism.
Above, you can see the USB 3.0 port of the Bridge 3.0.
The Leef Bridge 3.0 is factory formatted with the FAT32 file-system. Usable capacity after formatting is 14.9GB.
Above, we have our results from testing. Here the Bridge 3.0 came in at 82MB/s read and 11MB/s write.
When I first read about the Leef Bridge 3.0, I was really surprised to see them include USB 3.0 support in a hybrid solution. This is something I was truly excited about, but, after testing, I find myself slightly disappointed to find that write speeds were pretty dismal at best.
The issue with OTG drives is they have terribly slow write speeds that lead to longer waits when loading files to take with you on the go. For me, I could care less how fast my Android phone can read the files as long as it's capable of playing video.
This leads me to build quality, where again Leef continues to surprise me with their unique designs. I really enjoy the quality of the device itself; the sliding mechanism felt very solid and locked into place, so there was no movement when plugging in into my PC.
MSRP of the 16GB Leef Bridge 3.0 comes in at $19.99 with a five-year warranty. Current market pricing can be found below.
PRICING: You can find the Leef Bridge 2.0 (NOT 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 32GB Leef Bridge 2.0 (NOT 3.0) retails for $34.99 at Amazon.