This pocket-sized 8-in-1 media reader is a must for those juggling different flash card formats.
If you have a range of flash media cards, this portable media reader will come in handy. Rather than constantly swapping host devices (such as digital cameras, PDAs and MP3 players) in your valuable USB ports, the reader can stay attached to your PC and you just have to insert the card/s. As it is conforms to Mass Storage Device standards, it is a driverless installation under Windows ME/2000/XP. In our tests, Windows XP recognised the device immediately and we were able to access our files within seconds.
Bi-directional transfer of data is achieved through removable drives that appear in Windows Explorer. You can then copy, open or edit the files contained on flash cards just as you would with a normal disk drive. There is a green LED on the card reader that blinks during reads and writes. No extra power cord is needed as power is provided through the USB cable. None of the slots are spring-loaded but this did not make it difficult to remove any of the media cards.
The reader works with a standard USB port, but for Hi-Speed mode you will need a USB 2.0 port. The USB 2.0 specification gives theoretical transfer speeds up to 480 megabits per second (Mb/s) but due to the transfer rate of flash media we did not achieve these speeds during our tests. We achieved transfer speed for Compact Flash at approximately 16.6 Mb/s (2027KB/s), Memory Stick peaked at about 5.9 Mb/s (725KB/s) and SmartMedia reached around 6.7 Mb/s (820KB/s).
Windows 98 SE does not offer native-support for such devices so a painless driver installation through the supplied CD is necessary. Installing the driver will gives custom icons representing the different media types in most versions of Windows but they didn't appear when testing the device under XP. The supplied manual discusses this anomaly further. Mac OS 8.6 and versions above are also supported, but similar problems with icons arise for Mac OS X.
With or without icons the device operates well. The eight types of flash memory formats compatible with the media reader are CompactFlash I/II, IBM Microdrive, SmartMedia, Secure Digital/MultiMediaCard (SD/MMC), Memory Stick, and MagicGate Memory Stick (non-secure mode only).
If you find yourself swapping your flash-based USB devices a lot and want to get rid of the cable clutter caused, this Belkin media reader/writer will have high appeal. If you're frustrated by the limiting speeds of normal USB transfer then you might want to consider trying this device. However, if you only need to copy a couple of photos from a digital camera or have a 16 to 64MB flash memory card you're probably best off transferring these using your existing method.
Belkin High speed USB 2.0 8-in-1 Media Reader and Writer
Company: Belkin Australia
Price: AU$99.95
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 1800 666 040
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