Lexar JumpDrive C20i 64GB Lightning Flash Drive Review

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

Lexar's C20i, in my eyes, is the most unique take on a flash drive that I have ever seen, and Lexar has packed this drive with performance making it one of the quickest iOS drives on the market.

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In what I believe was November of 2015, I had the chance to test the Lexar M20i, a Lightning-based solution that allowed Lexar an entry into the market. Now nearly six months later they are back with a revised iOS solution, the C20i.

The C20i is Lexar's second Lightning drive solution. This time around they have opted for a unique design going away from the traditional slider that so many vendors use. The C20i carries marketing numbers that would label this drive as a top-tier iOS solution with read at 95 Mb/s and write at 20 MB/s.

Getting back to the design, the C20i is unique in that Lexar has designed this drive to be linear in that a small amount of wire separates the USB 3.0 and Lightning connections making it look like a short USB charging cable - and that's just the kicker, it can be used as a charging cable for your iOS device.

The MSRP for the 64GB Lexar C20i is listed at $95.99 with a three-year warranty.

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Packaging for the C20i is your standard off the shelf packaging. Marketing pretty much covers both sides of the front with capacity up top and compatibility at the bottom. To the right, we have marketing performance.

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The backside offers a little more detail on the drive with specifications and OS support towards the middle and in the fine print, we find the warranty information.

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Above, we have the drive itself and as you can see quite a unique design.

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Above, we have both connections the Lightning and USB 3.0

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Stretching the drive out we have a length of 5.5", so it's not quite ideal for charging your device via your desktop or wall charger, but it's possibly good enough while you are on the go with an Ultrabook or similar.

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The C20i, like the M20i tested back in November, uses the baseline mobile app designed by Photofast.

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The Lexar C20i uses the FAT32 file system with a usable capacity of 59.7GB after formatting.

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Taking the C20i into testing, I am happy to report marketing numbers were met quite easily with this drive reaching 95 MB/s read and 32.3 MB/s write. This makes it the second quickest iOS solution I have tested so far.

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Looking at the price/performance chart, the C20i comes in just ahead of the M20i due to its slightly better write performance and better pricing.

The Lexar C20i is one of the only truly unique iOS solutions I have seen apart from the MoStash from Team Group. The build quality of this drive is top tier, as expected from a brand like Lexar. With this device having the ability to act as a charge cable for your Apple device, the wire gauge used is substantial and comes in at 4mm thick, almost double that of the standard cable from Apple.

On the performance side, the C20i is the second quickest iOS solution I have tested with 95 MB/s reads and 32 MB/s writes, and looking at the price/performance, this drive is quite comfortable in the middle of the pack.

Overall, the only thing that holds this drive back is the app, as personally I don't care for the layout, the functionality or the feel of it and think Lexar would be better off designing something for themselves. With that said, for most, the app is probably fine as it does let you transfer files along with backing up the data from your phone.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Z97-A - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Memory: Patriot Viper 3 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600 - Buy from Amazon
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Storage: Intel 730 480GB - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 750W - Buy from Amazon / Read our review
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 - Buy from Amazon