[Video] Kingston Wi-Drive app drops ‘beta’ tag, adds new features and just plain works Great

Some of you may have seen a snazzy little device from Kingston called the Wi-Drive. It is a small, portable Wi-Fi enabled hard drive that comes in a 16gb and 32 gb model. The purpose behind the Wi-Drive is to load it up with movies, music, photos or various file types that you may want or need on the road. The hardware is easy enough to use, charge it up transfer your files and you are set. While ease of use and support was abound for iOS devices, Androids app need some major work. The app had been in a beta status for a long time. We are happy to report that the Wi-Drive app for Android has not only dropped its beta tag, but has fixed a few things and added in some new features and support.

The app is no longer only a tablet supported application. It is supported by any device sporting Android 2.2 an up. I immediately tested that theory out on both my Vibrant running ICS and on the Galaxy Note running 2.3. I don’t have anything on Froyo lying around at the moment, but I assume that it works just fine as well. I didn’t have anything special on my test device except a couple of movies. All of them played perfectly. Now, before you think I am crazy to like the abilities the Wi-Drive offers, let me explain a little bit more about it first. The Wi-Drive allows you to connect up to 3 devices to the Wi-Drive at the same time. Meaning you and your buddy can both be on a plane and watching different movies from the device at the same time. Same thing applies to music and files.

Sounds pretty cool now doesn’t it? Kingston has taken it up a notch though. You can also transfer files to and from the device wirelessly from the Wi-Drive app and the Wi-Drive hardware.

While all of that is fine well and good for many users, we are geeks, we like more. The recent update also lets you access, view and play any files on your Wi-Drive from any web browser. As you can see in the image below, I am streaming one movie with the WI-Drive to the Galaxy Note, while another movie is streaming to my Chromebook through the browser. Bothe files played flawlessly with out hick ups. The Note was streaming an HD MKV file like it was nothing. On the Chromebook side, MKV files won’t play, but MP4 and AVI showed up and played perfectly. I imagine the limitations of the Chromebook are to blame for that issue.

Before this most recent update, I couldn’t even use the device at all. Not owning a tablet of any value myself, my testing was rather pointless. Patience has paid off. I would have easily recommended this for those of you that had anything iOS related in tech bag of goodies. Now that the support is there for Android, the addition of having a browser play my files and access them, along with the wireless transfer ability, this is a must have accessory. We can always use another 16GB or 32GB of storage, but having that extra storage loaded full of media and shareable with friends at the push of a button makes it invaluable. A person babbling on about it and a silly little photo doesn’t really prove anything. Since the devices are somewhat expensive, you want to see it in action before you toss down a load of money for one. So watch my terrible attempt at a quick video look of the app and device in action on the Note and the Chromebook. You might be pleasantly surprised.

On to the most common issue I saw appear in the comments at the Play Store. People are reporting that it just searches for the device forever and never connects. This may or may not sound silly, but you have to go to your Android devices Wi-Fi settings and connect to the Wi-Drive before it will find it and use it. Just saying.

Those of you that already have a Wi-Drive, be sure to re-install or update the application and let us and our readers know how it works for you now. For the rest of you, if you have been waiting for it to function correctly before you purchased one, now is the time. Below you can snag either of the two models via Amazon. Now that it works correctly, they are worth every red cent. My only complaint is having the 16GB and not the 32GB model, I need more storage!! Maybe enough of you guys will buy one so I can afford the bigger one. :O)

Application: Wi-Drive
Developer: Kingston Digital Inc.,
Cost: FREE