This New Wi-Fi Hard Drive Is Your iPhone's Best Friend [REVIEW]

Kingston's Wi-Drive is one of many brand new devices dedicated to helping you bring all your movies on the road because your iPhone or iPad doesn't have enough space in it.

The Wi-Drive creates its own Wi-Fi network, and can stream movies and music to up to three Apple devices at once (so it's perfect for kids in the backseat), and has enough battery life for a plane ride.

Why Should You Buy It?

The Wi-Drive isn't cheap, but it can be invaluable if you're a traveling movie buff, or if you're a photographer and want to take a library of pictures with you. Or, maybe you just want to bring your entire iTunes library with you.

The Wi-Drive is ultra-light, and comes in two flavors: 16GB for $129.99 and 32 GB for $174.99. If you aren't concerned about size, you could grab a Seagate GoFlex for $199.99 which has a lot more space (500GB), but isn't as portable.

The Wi-Drive app for your iPhone and iPad doesn't look too cutting edge, but it works. There isn't an Android app quite yet. Once you hold the Wi-Drive's power button to turn it on, you boot up the app, connect to the Wi-Drive as if it were a regular Wi-Fi router, and you get instant access to the folders on your Wi-Drive.

If you tap a movie, it takes a couple seconds to buffer, then starts playing. There's no lag when streaming movies to your device, and I have no complaints with functionality--if you're within ten feet from the Wi-Drive at least.

The Wi-Drive charges via a USB cable and AC adapter it comes with. The USB cable is also how you load movies, music, etc. onto the device via drag and drop. When you plug it into your computer, it shows up like a USB thumb drive would.

widrive movie

Movies buffer instantly.

While Kingston's claimed four hours of battery life is okay, if you have a USB adapter for your car's cigarette lighter, you can keep the thing plugged in and be all set. Many flights to Europe are on planes that have outlets anyway, so you could very well use the Wi-Drive as your personal movie library on a long trip.

One cool feature is that unlike other Wi-Fi hard drives, while you're connected to the Kingston Wi-Drive, you can also browse the internet. The Wi-Drive can connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot in the area--when you use the internet on your iPhone or iPad, the Wi-Drive acts as a gateway. You lose some speed along the way, but it's better than nothing.

If you're curious about ripping movies to your computer, try Handbrake. It's a computer program that makes it simple to rip movies to a variety of formats, and you can choose how big the movie files will be.

The Kingston Wi-Drive should be in stores within the next few weeks.