Crucial Hi-Speed USB 7-in-1 Card Reader review

9 December 2003 12:20 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Similar in style to the Flash Go 2! Reader, Crucial’s 7-in-1 card reader is a compact affair that does what it sets out to do.

About the size of half a sandwich, the USB2.0 cable is hidden in a compartment at the rear of the unit. This makes for safe carriage and means that you’re not going to get wires tangled or knotted at the bottom of the bag.

At the front are the four slots that offer the capabilities of reading seven formats: CompactFlash Type I/II, IBM Microdrive, SmartMedia, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, Memory Stick , Memory Stick Pro (1 bit). Like the Flash Go2! Player - the main notable exclusion is the xD Picture card format favoured by Olympus and FujiFilm.

The top provides two useful lights - power and access - and do give you the assurance that something is working behind the scenes. Connecting to a PC or Mac is simple and the drives appear automatically in the relevant places on the relevant Operating systems.

Verdict

If you're after a portable memory card reader then this is unit is as good as any. It's compact, does what it says on the tin and allows you to read virtually all the media formats. Of course if you are an Olympus or Fujifilm user and have bought your camera in the last year or so then this product is completely useless to you for the lack of xD. Because of that top marks cannot be awarded, however at £10 cheaper than the Flash Go2!, this is the better option.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Crucial
Price as reviewed: £20
The good: Covers 88% of card formats to date
The bad: Made obsolete by future formats, & omits the most recent
Quick verdict: If you don’t need xD it’s a good buy. Hopefully it’ll be updated to give maximum coverage of all formats.
Score