I like Verbatim brand.

"Capacity most often determines the cost of your USB drive. The most common sizes found on the market today range from 2GB to 64GB�with larger sizes coming to market everyday! If you plan to use your USB drive for moving files from one computer to another and the files are rather small, such as documents or low resolution images, start at the lower-end capacities. If you plan to move or store larger documents, including graphics, videos, games or other multimedia files, the larger the size the better. In general, it is best to get the largest capacity you can find within your price range."

I personally use two commercial brands, and two unknown brands as they have either been work provided or from a vendor. Other than a few "included" features on one I have found nothing different about them.

I do believe though in the adage, "Buy cheap you get cheap".

DA

there are differences and I agree cheap usually equals cheap
I in general get Kingston brand and have never had any problems with them.

On Vista OS you can use certain "name brand" flash drives for increased memory while the cheaper one's wont work.