As we've said time and time again within our articles related to USB storage devices, the manufacturers of USB flash drives have a relatively limited set of marketing tools at their disposal, and since the competition in the field is a very harsh one, promoting one's products against those coming from household names (such as SanDisk, Lexar, Transcend, A-Data, etc.) can prove to be a pretty difficult task.

For this reason, the people over at USB Zone have decided to bet on a very different approach, namely targeting specific market segments with appropriately-designed flash drives. And that's exactly the case with the company's BBQ series USB flash drives, which are made especially for those people who love both gadgets and good food.

The BBQ series includes BBQ chicken wing, drumstick, and Chinese roasted pork models. The drives are made from silicone and plastic, which makes the reproduction of the actual food courses even more realistic. And even if the size of the drive might seem larger than normal from the photos, the truth of the matter is that the differences are not that significant.

“Consumers are looking for more creative peripherals now.” Clara Lai, TheUSBZone spokeswoman said. “This is an idea of combining daily needs – food – and daily use – flash usb [sic] drive.” The BBQ USB drives are suitable for “daily practical use, personal collections, and gifts for friends. Our customers are proud of buying it as a gift as it is more creative and unique than the usb [sic] drive in simple design.”

For the time being, the devices from the BBQ series are available in 4GB and 8GB flavors, and, similar to most other such products on the market, connect to a host computer via a USB 2.0 interface, being able to attain data transfer rates of up to 40MBps. They're also compatible with Windows 98/XP/NT/2000/Vista, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems.

As far as the pricing goes, the BBQ series USB flash drives are quite average, since each of the models can be found in the US$27-37.99 price range (depending on the specific storage capacity).


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