Your girlfriend or boyfriend may be holding the key to you heart but LaCie has the key to your mobile storage needs. Created by 5.5 Designers, several new storage products have been introduced by LaCie among which the iamaKey, itsaKey and PassKey. Both the iama and the ista are key-shaped USB flash drives with gold plated water and scratch resistant connectors and an outer shell constructed from metal.

With storage capacities reaching 8GB, they are said to offer up to 30MB per second via USB 2.0. The PassKey doesn't have integrated flash storage but it does come with a microSD/HC card reader. OK, making strange covers for regular USB flash drives is the fashion but why would anyone want to hang their storage devices on their key chain? Robot-like USB flash drives I understand, mutilated cow-like flash drives I sort of get but who, no matter how crazy, would like to hang their key chain on their computer?

You know those types of key chains that make taking the key out of there a very hard thing to do? Well, imagine needing to take the USB out every time you're planning to use it. Or hanging your keys on your computer so you can transfer some files. There's also that pesky problem when a new user gets a computer that has the USB slots at the back of the machine, and the computer is very close to a wall, under a desk, and there are lots of wires and it's dark and you can’t reach it very well.

Although they might look sort of geeky cool, there are a lot of shortcomings for the Key-series flash drives from LaCie, especially because of their impracticality in what most consider normal conditions. And besides making geeky puns like “I hold the key to your files,” I don't find them cool or cute at all. There are too many keys on my key chain to begin with.


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