Memory-Card Reviews

Highly recommended.

I purchased two of Viking's PC10032X64-CL3 256MB PC100 DIMMs in order, of course to speed up my machine, replacing a 64 MB DIMM.

I am running an AMD-K6-2 (350) CPU with Microsoft's Windows Millennium Edition (ME)operating system, and a 20.4 gig C hard drive (which I also purchased from Amazon.com). I have the Diamond 220 and the Diamond Monster 3D II video accelerator, and a Soundblaster 2000 sound system.

The DIMMs installed with little problem, but I did have to slide out my C harddrive to get at the slots. I found that it is important to seat them firmly and make sure that they are completely seated, after a couple of failures of the machine to recognize them.

The computer immediately checked and read the new RAM, and everything seemed to work correctly. However, upon re-booting it misread the RAM and only recognized one DIMM. I think the problem is with the operating system rather than the DIMMs. I have been experiencing frequent lock-ups lately with Windows ME, and suspect a corrupt file somewhere. I get error messages with each lockup which mean nothing to me, since I am neither a programmer nor technician.

All-in-all, these seem to be good products at an astoundingly low price. Be sure, however, that your machine is a PC100. If in doubt, check your present DIMM or SIMM. It should tell you that it is for a PC100.

Good luck.

Joseph H. Pierre
author of The Road to Damascus: Our Journey Through Eternity

So far, it's been about what I expected. I insert my card into the device, plug the device into an open FireWire port on my PowerBook G4, iPhoto launches and I click a button to start the upload.

Here are some sample upload times for 150 phots of around 0.8 MB each:
Direct camera to computer connection with USB 1.1
PowerBook G4 12": 7 minutes 8 seconds
PowerMac G4 667 Mhz: 9 minutes 6 seconds

Using Delkin Firewire Reader:
PowerBook G4 12": 4 minutes 25 seconds
PowerMac G4 667 Mhz: 3 minutes 29 seconds

So, as you can see, the device is significantly if not spectacularly faster than a direct USB connection.

I've used the device with both a SanDisk Ultra II 256MB card and a SiliconTech 128MB card with no apparent difficulties. Despite being much newer, the SanDisk card doesn't appear to be significantly faster than the older card.

I've tried over six USB 1.1 and 2.0 CF card readers, on different PC's and operating systems ... none to my satisfaction ... read errors, function device drivers not found, won't "eject" or dismount properly, etc, etc.

The first time I pluged in the Delkin Devices READER-24 FireWire Reader - it worked!!! No special drivers needed either.

This device is awesome. It's small and fast...but best of all, it's built like a TANK (ok, a plastic tank). Here's the story:

My JumpDrive went MIA a few weeks ago. Having some pretty critical stuff on it, I decided to turn my house upside-down. After a long search, I asked my wife if she'd seen it. She gave me this funny look and proceeded to explain how she found it in the dryer...AFTER not one 60-min dry cycle, but TWO!!!

So, it went through a normal wash cycle, and two 60-min high-heat dry cycles. I gave it a couple of days to be sure it hadn't collected any other moisture...AND IT WORKS! This was about two weeks ago, and I've used it daily since. OUTSTANDING!

Now, a buddy of mine is currently having a "drive not formatted" problem with his drive (potentially losing his data--but Lexar support is going to try to recover it), so I won't claim it's perfect. I am, however, sufficiently impressed with my device that I'm still giving it 5 stars.

Outdoors it is also quite good but, being a bit more challenging, you might be able to tell it's not the travel channel you're watching (but it's still very good)

Now here's the bad news.
The optical image stbilizer is OK but you do stil have to be very careful to get good video. It does not iron out the bigger shakes like the electronic ones do. So I am not so thrilled with the stabilizer.

Still pictures, if you care, are good 1M pics but nothing more. They are useful.

Surprise! The lens is mismarked and will not accept 43mm filters or auxiliary lenses. In fact it won't accept ANY filters because it is 50mm (not 49 and not 52) and therefore non-standard. So you can forget about getting a wide angle lens for it. This is a problem for us... No polarizer, no wide angle lense. So, at this point we are not sure we'll keep the camera.. even though we have been favorably impresed with the basic quality.

Performance wise though, the card works great. I would like a little more room to hold my MP3s and possibly digital camera images, as the Compact Flash card is compatible with most good models.