Rumored for a long time and finally (?) reality, Google has released Google Drive. Google Drive is….Dropbox by Google. Seriously, there’s no way you can’t see where the idea came from. There are Windows, Mac, and Android software available now, with iOS “coming soon”. You can use these platforms to get files into your Google Drive, as well as organize, browse, and use the files form a browser. Google Drive is integrated with a lot of Google apps, so that you can open a whole range of file types right in the browser. In theory, this is a hard drive in the cloud that comes with cloud based apps to go with it.
Pricing is where this beats Dropbox, with 5GB of free storage being more than twice what Dropbox offers. 25GB will cost you $2.50 per month and 100GB will cost you $5 per month, with options available up to 16TB for even heavier use. In comparison, Dropbox’ next step up from 2GB is 50GB at $100/year. Oh and don’t get me started on box.net’s free 50GB.
Where this falls short of Dropbox is basically spread and compatibility. Dropbox is already available for iOS, not “coming soon”, and even has Blackberry on its list – which isn’t even in the works for Google Drive. At this point you’re also a lot more likely to find someone to share files with on Dropbox than on Google Drive, but that might change. Personally, Drive is out of the question until something comes along that does the same thing Dropsync does on my Android devices – automatically sync screenshots, photos, save game files, and backups of launchers and the sorts. It does that so well and so flawlessly that the thought of not having it is insane at this point.
Perhaps more importantly though, Google needs to reach out to me if it wants me to get interested in using its services. I have ages left on my Dropbox Pro account still, so Google isn’t really doing much to convince me to come over by offering me a measly 5GB – which wouldn’t fit half of what I have in Dropbox. Drive is the underdog here, the copy that needs to prove its worth. Paid Dropbox users are perfect candidates for Drive’s more paid options, so I find it highly peculiar that they’re not offering the first month of the 25GB plan for free or something like that (might have to do with server capacity, I grant you, but somehow I don’t think that would be an issue).
Anyways, the Android app is up for grabs now, so you can judge for yourself if this is something that your mobile lifestyle needs.
[Google Play | Google Drive]
