Transcend JetDrive Go 500 Review

My two use cases for a Flash Drive with BOTH Apple Lightning and USB Type-A ports:
-to transfer file from iPhone to notebook or desktop computers (esp. Windows machines)
-to copy videos/photos from iPhone and to view them on iPad

I travelled to Jiuzhaigou recently. I bought my iPhone and iPad. I believed my iPhone could meet almost my needs but iPad would do a better job for viewing photos. A lot of photos.

Arrow Bamboo Lake, Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan, China

Five Flower Lake, Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan, China

Reed Lake, Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan, China

My iPhone could meet almost all my needs. However I had to print out some travel document on physical paper during the trip. I expected there were Windows PCs with printers for guest use at the hotels. I was not sure the PCs could access cloud storage like Dropbox. I needed a means to easily transfer a pdf document made on my iPhone to the hotel PC – a flash drive with both Apple Lightning and USB TYPE-A interfaces.

I did bought this kind of flash drive two years ago. The objective was to offload photo storage usage from iPhone. It did not work since last year! iOS 9 or later devices cannot detect the drive! It was an expensive gadget and I expected it works for two or more years! It was a unpleasant experience. Dual-port flash drive was a new gadget category at that time and there were not many options. This category is more mature now and we have more choices. My current selection criteria are
1.Apple MFI certified
2.supports USB 3.0
3.physical design with extended lightning connector (for easy plug-in when there is iPhone case)
4.a good iOS app which supports common document formats (pdf, docx, pptx and xlsx, etc.) as well as photo and video. Because of iOS restriction, we need a dedicated app to use the physical flash drive. Lightning flash drive is a two-component product!
5.supports both iPhone and iPad
6.made by company with sound reputation of reliable products
7.good customer reviews/feedbacks

These are my first round selections:
– SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive
– Lexar JumpDrive C20i
– Ravpower iPhone Lightning Flash Drive USB 3.0
– Transcend JetDrive Go 500

Based user reviews, SanDisk iXpand and Lexar JumpDrive do not support formats other than photo and video! Both Lexar and Ravpower can be used as charging cables which are useful! However they are a little bit bulky. I wonder if the rubber portions are durable.

Finally I bought a 32GB JetDrive Go 500. It meets all my criteria! It is small, light and tough. The case is made of zinc alloy. There is no moving part. Very handy to carry.

Transcend JetDrive Go 500 is small than AirPod and one gram heavier.

I have been using it for almost a month. It is fast and reliable. Below is a highlight of its spec:
– Ports: one lightning and one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type A
– Maximum data transfer rate: lightning at 20MB/s and USB at 130MB/s
– Dimension: 36.55mm x 14.3mm x 9.01mm
– Weight: 5g
– Warranty: 2-year
– iOS app: JetDrive Go. The app will prompt you asking for your permission to launch the app to access the device when you plug it in your iPhone or iPad.

There is an informative review on appleapple.top. Below is another good review, by Tony Mauro Ruiz, on YouTube:

I wish the iOS app will support AirPlay soon.

I will recommend this device to if you have use cases similar to mine. Transcend is a well known Taiwan manufacturer, found in 1988, focusing computer memory and storage products. Transcend products in general are good in terms of performance, industrial design, software, quality control and customer service. Its products work reliably for years! Transcend JetDrive Lite, launched in 2014, is a very popular storage solution for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro (mid-2016 and before).

I hope you find this review useful.