USB Source helps inform and educate our clients about Flash Drives and Digital Picture Frames.

Many customers believe they can buy drives and frames at below market value. This is simply not true. A much lower price may mean you are buying nothing but trouble!
             

Digital Picture Frames
Digital Picture Frames also have their problems. Anyone who has bought a cheap digital picture frame can attest to 2 main problems.

1) Each frame has an operating system. The cheap ones are written for Chinese and have a very poor English language interface. We have heard the horror stories and we have spent many hours trying to figure out how to make these cheap frames work. After a year of research we found the solution. It is a Windows-like operating system. Easy to start; easy to transfer pictures and to set up variable run programs. If you don’t have an M-Logic solution you might as well buy a Chinese/English translation book to go along with the frame.

2) The second problem no one tells you when buying a cheap frame. It comes with no memory!!!! It can only run about 5 pictures until you add an SD card to the frame (appox $20). This is not what you want.

We solved this problem by adding internal memory to all frames. 128 MB’s is standard which can hold about 500 average size pictures. This is all included.

Flash Drives
Why do similar looking flash drives sell at prices far below the average market price? Simple! All flash drive memory is NOT CREATED EQUAL! Many flash drive suppliers are thieves!

Lets look at how flash drive memory chips are made, graded and sold. There are 4 different classes and standards.

Grades A, B, C and the sneaky, Grade D

Grade A
              
Tier 1 Brand Name. These are bona fide premium chips with the flash chip manufacturers name & serial number imprinted on the chip itself. Manufacturers such as Samsung and Hynix produce these chips. They are the most expensive, but also are the most reliable memory chips you can buy. A flash drive supplier using these chips will readily offer the customer a lifetime warranty. These are the chips that USB Source uses.

 Grade B:
             
Tier 2 OEM flash chips. These are very similar chips as found in the Brand Name category. The only difference is that the manufacturers put their clients name on the chips. These chips may be just as reliable but do not come with the same warranty as a Name Brand chip. USB Source looks at it this way. If we were Samsung we would put our name on the best chips, the other lesser quality chips we would not put our name on it. We feel this way about USB Source

Grade C:
             
This is where the problems begin. Often called recycled or reclaimed flash chips, these chips are not recycled chips but are considered to be waste from the silicone wafer that the original manufacturer does not want and considers to be garbage. They are discarded and sold by the pound.

A silicone wafer is a thin small (8-10 inches) round disk. The center (5 inch by 5 inch) square contains the prime chips. These are the Grade A Tier 1 chips. They perform flawlessly.

The outer edges of the silicone wafer contain chips that have flaws and failures. These are sold to toy manufacturers; cheap gadget makers etc as well as unscrupulous flash drive makers. These waste chips fail about 40% of the time!

These waste memory flash drives are found in the least expensive flash drives advertised on-line. To look at them you may think you are getting a bargain, when all you are getting is a headache. Ask yourself; can you afford to have 30-40% of your flash drives fail?

Grade D:

We know that Grade C sounds bad but it gets even worse! Some unscrupulous flash drive brokers and manufacturers will buy the waste memory and actually forge an imprint of the original manufacturer's name on the Grade C waste memory chip. It may read Samsung or Hynix, etc. but it is most definitely junk. Remember, a flash drive is an important business tool that holds data! Think!

The other latest scam is even more devious. There is software that can re-program a smaller chip (say 256MB) to read (and make you believe) 1 GB!!!! You will not know what you have purchased and paid for until the drives arrive…. by then it is too late!

Another thing to consider: All offshore purchases must be pre-paid to a Chinese bank before shipment. Ask yourself, "What is my recourse if the product fails"?". With USB Source you are buying domestically and are protected by US commerce laws. The question you should ask yourself…” How safe do I feel sending my money to China to pay for something before I get it….?

The Conclusion: You may find flash drives and digital picture frames cheaper than you do at USB Source, but they won’t be better or even the same. As the old saying goes. “The taste of a bargain is easily replaced by the bitterness of being fooled”

For more information email us info@usbsource.com

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