USB 2.0 - or not?

Is it me, or do the USB 2.0 ports on my laptop seem too slow? I copied some files from a friend onto a USB stick, and they copied quickly. But transferring them onto my machine was very different.

It's a new machine, so it's not like they're USB 1.1 ports, but the speed definitely doesn't seem to be up to USB 2.0 par.

Bad laptop? Bad ports? Or is there a setting I can tweak to put this right?