Features

- 40 times faster than original USB 1.1 (transfer rate up to 480Mbps)
- Supports IBM Microdrive
- Backward compatible with USB 1.1 devices
- Includes three-foot USB extension cable
- Plug & Play and hot-swapping capability
- No batteries required: Draw power directly from USB port
- No driver needed for Windows 2000/ME/XP and Mac OS 8.6 or above
- Driver CD included for Windows 98/SE
- Dimensions: 3.11" x 2.36" x .51" (7.9cm x 6cm x 1.3cm)
- Weight: .78 ounces (22g)

I ordered this memory card reader direct from Crucial's website for $9.99 (February 2005) with no shipping and no tax. Crucial shipped it to my door via UPS second day delivery at no additional charge - great service. Included in the small cardboard box was the extension cord, driver installation CD, and instruction sheet.

Performance

Installation

In theory, installation is a breeze because this is a plug and play device. In practice, it didn't work out that way. I'm running a very clean Dell Dimension 8400 with Windows XP (service pack 2). I connected the drive directly to one of my front USB ports without the included connecting cable. Windows immediately noticed the device and put an icon on the taskbar. So far, so good. When I inserted a Viking CompactFlash 256 MB card into the drive, I instantly got the blue screen of death telling me that Windows was in some way unhappy with my device and dumped the memory. I disconnected the card reader and rebooted. After startup, I connected the reader via the extension cable to a USB port on the back of the computer and got the exact same error message. I rebooted the computer again with the reader attached and things began to work - I inserted my memory card and the was able to browse and download from it with ease. A couple days later, I inserted the card again and Windows didn't recognize the device. No blue screen of death, however. I pulled out the memory card, unplugged the reader, plugged it back in, and everything worked fine again without rebooting.

UPDATE: My problems with this card reader have continued, so I exchanged it for another unit of the same model, which produced exactly the same problems. I tried both readers in multiple USB ports on my computer, each of which works perfectly with any other device. I've had absolutely no problems whatsoever with this Viking CompactFlash card in two different digital cameras (one Canon and one Nikon). I borrowed a different brand of card reader from a friend and it worked perfectly from the start with the same Viking CompactFlash card. To me, this means that Crucial (Micron) has designed a faulty device; this isn't the fault of Windows or Dell. My Dell Dimension is running very clean with minimal software and no problems whatsoever with any other USB device.

SECOND UPDATE: Upon trying to return the second card, a technical support person at Crucial indicated that Crucial was aware that these readers don't work with Windows XP Service Pack 2. Too bad they don't indicate that on their website - I never would have bothered with this reader in the first place. Then the customer support person I was transfered to refused to pay for the return postage, even after I informed him that Crucial had acknowledged that this was their fault. After 15 minutes of arguing, he "researched" the problem and finally agreed to pay for the return postage. Not good customer service.

After installation

When this memory card reader did work for a brief moment, it was really nice. Download speeds are very fast; 150 MB of images flows through in less than 5 seconds. It's so fast that the connection speed is often not the limiting factor (with about 150 MB of imagery). Rather, the time required for Windows to preview the images as thumbnails seems to take longer (even with 1 GB RAM on a 3.4 Ghz machine). Much faster than connecting a USB cable between the camera and the computer. A single LED light on the top of the drive indicates when a card has been inserted and when file transfer is taking place. The USB extension cable has a transparent casing and connects easily to both the reader and any USB port on my computer. It is so compact and so light weight that you could easily carry around in any pocket with as a spare drive (with a CompactFlash card). You could also easily forget it's in your pocket and send it through the washing machine (yes, sometimes things may be too portable!).

Crucial includes a brief instruction sheet that explains installation procedures for a variety of systems (XP, 98, MAC, etc.). Since I'm using XP, the instructions basically consist of plug in the drive, no driver installation required. It would be nice if some troubleshooting was provided for the type of installation problems I had. I browsed around their website looking for just this, but to no avail. This is somewhat to be expected because in theory, there really shouldn't be installation problems with this type of device.

Conclusions

Based on my experience, Windows XP users should stay away from Crucial memory card readers. Customer service at Crucial is hit and miss; some customer service reps are friendly and willing to help, others aren't so friendly and aren't so willing to help.

Recommended: No