Memory-Card Reviews

I ordered a SanDisk SDSDB-64R 64 MB Secure Digital Card for $[money]. I used it in my Magellan Meridian Platinum GPS. I use a Zio SD Card Reader to load up to 64 MB of maps and points of interest data from Magellan's newest street mapping software (as of 5-21-02) USA Streets & Destinations. The SD card works like a charm. On a recent trip I loaded maps (with street level detail) covering an area from Richmond, VA to Boston, MA. That filled the 64MB SD card. If you have a Magellan Meridian Model GPS you DO NOT need to pay Magellan's high price for SD memory. Buy SanDisk, save some money and HAVE FUN GPSing!

I love San Disk Products! Their smart media cards are the best. They are very reliable and I have never received a faulty card. You can use them over and over... I like the 64MB size, it's perfect to take on trips and holds a nice amount of pictures. The price has really dropped in the last six months. I just purchased my fourth card. If your looking for smart media, stick with the brands you know and trust.

I dropped my PDA and the MMC card popped out. Realized it was gone hours later, went back, found it. It had been run over by a truck or forklift, judging from the scratches. Popped it back in, it worked fine. I'd call that durable, wouldn't you?

I got this camera as a loaner the other day when I took my Sony in for repair. Any thoughts of getting a JVC in the future have died.

First, the good stuff. The controls and the setup are MUCH better than Sony. The tape access, on the side, is preferable to Sony's bottom loading (on at least some, and my, unit) tape. Further, the on switch only requires a quick glance to turn on, rather than a serious look until you are familiar with it -- like the Sony. Finally, the built in light really comes in handy for quick shots.

That's it. There is a constant buzz on the camera that comes through on the tape. From looking at other JVC reviews, this seems to be a systematic problem not limited to my unit. And the picture is no where near as sharp. Now, my camera does have a slightly bigger CCD, but still the sharpness of Sony overwhelms JVC -- at least for one CCD camcorders. As far as taking still pictures, I didn't take any so I can't comment, but don't buy a camcorder to take pictures. That feature is there for a quick spontaneous snapshot when your camera isn't available or handy, not for continuous use.

I'm glad I get to give this back. I can live with akward controls, but I've got to have good picture quality and this camera doesn't deliver.

I confess... I made the unforgivable mistake !!!!!

Before buying my camcorder, I browsed the web for endless hours, for 2-3 months, looking for the best product within a reasonable price range. I kept IGNORING the SONY till the end, because it was a $100-150 more than the best I eventually found ....the JVC GRDVL820U.

I should never have written that check without holding a SONY in my palm and seeing what it has to offer.

I got my JVC and proudly used it the first 2 weeks ....but much was missing ....it didn't live up to my expectations. The pictures were good but not sharp, as would be expected of a MegaPixel camcorder. Indoor shooting and shooting in low light was a pain ....color reproduction was horrible in subdued light.

I was lucky I could return my camera and get my money back .....because soon I built up enough courage to walk upto a SONY dealer and try the DCR TRV38 ......AND IT LEFT ME SPEECHLESS!!!

The color reproduction, even in low-low light is incredible. It enhances the picture tone and brightness beyond imagination. The picture sharpness is unbelievable ....truely MegaPixel. It has terrific functions, way-way advanced features, exceptional craftsmanship and looks.

The SONY stands out at the top and has no challenger. I don't mind the extra $100 or 150. I really can't believe I ignored SONY initially!!!

So.... DON'T BUY A CAMCORDER UNLESS YOU TRY A SONY !!!!

After using this camera very happily for about a year and a half, suddenly videos became very blocky when onscreen objects moved. Now, instantly, everyone reading this is going to say, "How obvious, the heads are dirty." But I don't think this is the case. I have cleaned the camera with a cleaning tape about once every two or three weeks, or when it looked like the heads needed cleaning. But about two months ago, that stopped helping. The picture has become progressively blockier. A couple of days ago, I gently cleaned the heads with q-tips and a non-harming cleaning solution, but this did nothing to improve the camera's condition.

I recently went to Best Buy and talked to a salseman there, who said more complaints are made about JVCs regarding this matter than Canon or Sony.

Believe me, I didn't want to switch brands - as I had been using and liking my JVC camera, as I said, for about 1 1/2 years. But soon I'll be getting a Canon and throwing the old JVC away. It's unlikely I'll buy from them again.

As with all Sony products, memory sticks are more expensive than they should be. Lexar does a good job of getting the price at par with other media like CF and xD cards. Its transparent body is nice looking, but useless because you can either look at it or use it. The green led looks nice when its being read on my Clie... except that also has no real use either because there's already a red led on my Clie next to the slot which glows when it reads the media. The alternating red and green looks cool though.
This is a 128x2 MB stick. So you will either love or hate that you have to flick a switch. This also means that the 2 modules are a little less than 128MB, so overall, you would get more storage if you took a Sony or Sandisk 256MB memory stick. The switching becomes a pain when you are shooting MPEG movies with your CyberShot camera. That apart, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't buy it.

I have this Lexar stick and the SanDisk SDMSP-256-822 256 MB Memory Stick Pro. Unless you have an older camera that is not compatible with the Pro technology I highly recommend buying a Pro stick instead. The Pro stick does not have an a-b switch and it writes faster than the older memory sticks.

It is important however to make sure your camera (as well as any card reader) is compatible with the pro stick.

I bought one of the 256's at a local store for 870 some bucks. Works excellent but I never formatted it in the camera. Be sure you do that before taking pictures.

The first time I used this card, it had card errors. 1 or 2 missing pictures. I reformatted it and kept using it without additional issues, but eventually it lost all my pictures on one shoot. I contacted Viking's 24/7 technical support, but they were closed, and I sent in the card for 24 hour replacement and received a replacement four business days later.

Though I am in the market for another 1 gigabyte card, and the Viking is presently the best price. I will not buy it.

I have CF cards from other manufacturer, including Viking.

Two things I noticed:

1)It used up the battery faster than other CF.

2)Response time to write is slower than others, so it is good for still pictures. I missed quite a few good picture moment for my 3 years old son as he played.

After upgrading from a 3.2 megapixel digital camera (canon S20) to the 4.0 megapixel (canon s400), it was time to eliminate the somewhat useless 16 MB, 32 MB, and 64 MB Compact Flash cards from my arsenal of digital photography gear.

I have kept 128 MB, 256 MB, and 512 MB compact flash cards, but have found the Viking 1 GB compact flash to write and read quickly (in part on canon's new image processing and buffering in the S400 powershot camera).

Although I debated using a multispeed USB enhanced "digital film" product, for the price this Viking CF card is the best value currently (12 June 2003) available given the rebate and free ground shipping at Amazon.com.

I would recommend this product to other digital photographers, especially with the latest 4 and 5 megapixel cameras.

Echoing the other comments, I installed the software on my laptop and PC, set the public and private drives, saved some data, went on my way, and now the device is not detected on any PC, including both of my computers. It just stopped working after the second use. Lexar's tech support, online, email, and live, all fail to respond. I'm also having the same problems with the wide size of the drive. It does no good to have a private drive if you can't install the software on the PC you want to access. This is ridiculous. I'm returning it tomorrow to Circuit City.

I bought my lexar jumprdrive in a store. At the time, it seemed like a real bargain. However, you do get what you pay for and this product shows it. The bulky design makes using it on traditional towers painful if not impossible. Also, the device begins to slowly die within two months. My adivce is to either buy Lexar's 256 MB jumpdrive (which has given me no problem) or another, slimmer brand.

Well, I bought this little thing to replace my zip disk (which was just a headache). And instead of bargaining online, I went to a store and bought it at a steep markup price. That aside, this thing truly is a nifty little gadget, but it's not without its drawbacks. Because of the security capability I bought this model over its skinnier competition, but this feature isn't all it's cracked up to be. The security program is pretty simple but in order to setup or access the secured part of the drive you need to install the program onto whatever machine you are using. This can be a real problem if you want to access your secured files from a public machine with security restrictions that prevent user installations. Another big drawback is its relative bulkiness, users may have trouble fitting it in USB ports next to other used ports.

On the plus side, the "PUBLIC" half of the drive (which is my entire drive now)is always available and it has seamlessly worked in every XP machine I've put it in to. XP simply detects and install it as an additional drive without any requirement from the user. (Go XP!) 98 users will have to DL the drivers and install, but this seems to be the status quo with all flash drives. Additionally, I haven't put it through much yet but it seems pretty durable.

Bottom Line: It works great and everyone should have one but I can't say I'd buy this exact model again.

This is a piece of junk.

The first time I inserted a smart media card, the card went all the way into the unit. To get it out, I had to call customer support who told me how to disassemble the unit so that I could extract it. Great start!

It does not consistently read CF cards.

Bottom line-stay away.

This was my first media reader/writer. Everything works fine with it and I was very happy with it for 6 months. Then I got another reader/writer (Compact flash only), which was free with purchase of a 64M card... both cost $$$. The new reader is made by PQI, P/N FPTS-C, which is a cheapie you can get for ~$$$ on internet). I tried it out and its speed blew away the Viking (~8-10 times faster). I tried the same CF card with the same data on it in both readers, and even tried the readers on another computer (both computers USB 1.0), but results the same. I also have a Smart Media card and its transfer is about same as CF on the Viking reader, maybe a little slower. Later I built an AMD 2100+ computer, Soyo Platinum Dragon motherboard, USB 2.0, with built-in CF/Smart Media reader. Again the built-in CF transfer rate is about the same as the cheapie reader on USB 1.0 (although USB 2.0 is faster, but the 12x card speed, =1.8M, doesn't surpass the USB 1.0 by enough to make much of a difference), but the Viking was just as slow on USB 2.0 as 1.0.
Luckily most of my media needs are CF, so I use the cheapie at work and the built-in at home. I have the Viking connected in case one of these days I run across need for on of the other formats. I only wish I hadn't bought it until now, now that they're 1/2 the price what I paid for it (50 vs 25).

This is a very cost-effective unit for reading multiple mediacard formats. I have used this unit in many computers and operating system and I found it very fast and portable.

I bought it to read my digital camera's MMC but right now I am using it to share documents, multimedia files (mp3 and videos) and to take this files from my office to my house (I have a 256Mb card).

The unit is plug and play and you don't even need the drivers with the newest operating systems. It creates 4 drive letters within your computer and you can use different memory slots at the same time. I moved files from a Compact Flash to the MMC slot once.

I've had problems with this unit with only one computer, it was a friend of mine who was using an old Windows version, but besides that, the memory reader has worked perfectly.

This unit works great. I have never had any problems with it. Now, I would not be without it. The transfer rate is fast, as advertised, and this device is easy to use. I love it.

Purchased this item to facilitate transfer of photos from my new Olympus C-700 with Sandisk 64meg SmartMedia card. The technical specifications posted on this site claim compatibility with Mac OS 8.1. I was running OS 8.5, and the documentation that came with the reader states that Mac OS 8.6 is necessary. I upgraded to Mac OS 8.6 with difficulty. Little help from the Apple people. They no longer provide the CD disc for the easy "free upgrade". A 34 meg file for upgrading is posted on their support site. Now that is daunting in itself. Look for an Apple devotee with the upgrade CD. I found one and my problems did not end there. An iMac Firmware upgrade is necessary to alter the flash memory containing the BIOS information on the motherboard. Finding this small 1.5 meg file on the support site is nearly impossible. Got that from a friend also. The instructions to install this BIOS fix are a little intimidating. You must depress the reset button with the end of a paper clip on rebooting after running the small installation program. The documentation warns you that any interruption during this process will corrupt your ROM BIOS chips and require replacing the motherboard! I completed the upgrade to OS 8.6 with fear and quaking and no power failures during the process (a real danger here in California).

The Sandisk reader now shows up as a "untitled" disk on the desktop when inserted into a USB port with a smart media card inserted. Transfer of files is very fast with a simple drag and drop operation.

Worth the trouble and aggravation? Yes, my Olympus C-700 USB port is not supported in the upgraded version of MAC OS 8.6 and its USB implementation of mass storage devices. Apple of course would you rather junk the old computer and buy a new one. They get zero stars for their support.

I am a Macintosh user using an older Macintosh 7300 with a PowerPC processor. I am running OS9. I have a MacAlly PCI to USB interface card installed and have the SanDISK plugged into that. I found that the driver that came with the SanDisk reader needed to be upgraded (easily done over the Internet) before I got the reader to work reliably.

After that, things went very well. I have used the reader several times without a hickup. It is very, very fast compared to either the serial cable approach or the Flashcard Floppy Disk reader that I have been using. I would recommend this to anyone with a digital camera using SmartMedia.

Eventhough it's good and fast due to SD card bandwidth interface, compared to MMC and Sony memory stick. Palm 16 MB SD card is too expensive. The price of [money], you can buy at least 32 MB or even 64 MB of Sandisk SD card from some stores. Moreover, 16 MB is not enough anymore when most of the professional palm programs are among 4-5 MB.

This is a good product for store your aplications, the only bad thing is that you can't store databases on it.

Having lived through a Palm IIIx glitch that erased all my address listings, when I bought my Palm M505 I vowed to make the Memory Backup Card one of my next purchases.

It is tiny enough to store virtually anywhere (although not in a wallet or place where it will be manhandled). It backs up my Palm, including 3rd party software, in just over 3 minutes. Operation could not be simpler. Pop the card into the SD slot, press backup and off you go.

The card has a small lock switch, which keeps you from accidently erasing the data. One thing that Palm should include is a small case for the card. I use the case for my Sandisk 32 mb card to protect the Memory Backup Card, but this should really be included, especially since the card has exposed contacts that should be kept clean.

All in all, an elegant solution to system backup and worth the price for peace of mind.

Bought this product for under $5 from B&H. Tried it on 3 computers, two running XP and one running Win 2000. Did not work on any of them. Given what I paid for it, it is not worth the hassle of returning. I will buy a higher quality product to replace it.

I have one of these readers that came with my Lexar 1GB USB CF Card, and it works GREAT with that card. I recently purchased a Sandisk Ultra II 1GB card -- I put this card in the reader and the light just stayed illuminated; nothing was being read. I then read on the Lexar site where it says the JumpShot readers are made "specifically for Lexar CF Cards". That really gripes me. I guess it came with the card, so I shouldn't complain, but for Pete's Sake... this is a simple device... make the thing universal!

I don't know why there are so many negative reviews. This is a review to rebut them and give it two thumbs up.

My family and I own FIVE (5) of these readers, one for each member, different households. They all work wonderfully. I have not had any problems with this in windows 2000, XP or mac OS X. I highly recommend this reader, especially for this price. I have had 2 years of ownership and no complaints whatsoever. Fast read times, reliable.

This reader was easy to set up and worked GREAT with my 32MB Smart Media card. I recently bought a 128MB Smart Media card and my computer (800 MHz P3 with Windows 98SE) crashes every time I try to read this card. I called Lexar tech support, and they said it only works up to 32MB Smart Media cards. I downloaded the updated driver from the website, and now it works intermittently. Typically, it crashes my computer, I hard reboot, it may or may not crash a second time, then it reads the card. So eventually it works, and I have never lost any picture files, but I am going to buy a dedicated Smart Media reader to avoid these problems.

I bought this product one year ago and it didn`t bring any Windows xp drivers. I couldn`t find it on the lexar website so I contacted their support service wich promptly sent me the link for download. After downloading and installing the new drivers it worked fine ever since in 4 different machines with Cf of 16 and 64mb and a 16mb smartmedia.

1. For several years I struggled with digital film memory card transfers from my Kodak DC-265 digital camera to my Kodak software program, Picture Easy 3.1.
2. Primary problems:
a) Transfer times excessive, ie., 10 - 15 minutes.
b) Image transfers often excluded varying numbers of images.
3. Upon receipt of a Lexar Media USB DFR from a relative,
problems experienced above vanished, ie., transfers were
completed in a matter of seconds with no exclusions or aborts.
4. Since I have two residences in California, it seemed prudent to have a card reader at each.

Ward Bush