$22 for a PCMCIA CF card reader worth it?

[Murcielago]

just to elaborate. I saw this PCMCIA card reader for CF cards at a local IT shop. for those not familiar with it, it's a credit card sized but 5mm thick card that slots into yr laptop at the side.

it costs $22 and carried a sandisk logo, i didnt enquire abt it as I was in a hurry for lunch. the reason why i am thinking of getting it is because my not so modern laptop does not come with a cf card reader or any other memory cards.



opinions guys?

 

[zhikang]

get a USB all-in-one card reader. much cheaper. arnd $15 or so

 

[Hitman]

If your laptop has got USB slots, it's better to get a multi-card reader which costs about the same price. PCMCIA will soon be outdated technology...

Hope this helps.

Have a good weekend!

 

[Canew]

I bought my PCMCIA CF card reader for $12 from Make Fine Computer (S) Pte. Ltd., #04-24, Funan The IT Mall.
The reader is permanently in my PCMCIA slot.

(http://forums.clubsnap.org/showpost.php?p=2139423&postcount=2)

 

[Denosha]

16-bit PCMCIA or 32-bit Cardbus? If it's the former, it's going to be PAINFULLY slow. If it's the latter, that's really cheap cos normally it should be $50-60+. Cardbus readers are actually faster than quite a few generic usb 2.0 card readers. I have a lexar one permanently in my laptop.

I think you can tell which is which by the colour of the interface at the end of the card that goes into the slot. If it's gold, it's Cardbus.

 

[Murcielago]

I see. thanks for all the responses.

reason why i was thinking abt it is because my laptop only has 2 usb ports. possibly 1 for mouse and 1 for thumbdrive. yea i could carry a usb hub but that adds more things dangling around.

 

[Murcielago]

16-bit PCMCIA or 32-bit Cardbus? If it's the former, it's going to be PAINFULLY slow. If it's the latter, that's really cheap cos normally it should be $50-60+. Cardbus readers are actually faster than quite a few generic usb 2.0 card readers. I have a lexar one permanently in my laptop.

I think you can tell which is which by the colour of the interface at the end of the card that goes into the slot. If it's gold, it's Cardbus.

Didnt notice.

where did u get the cardbus ? does it work with all laptops or are there any design specifications?

 

[Canew]

16-bit PCMCIA or 32-bit Cardbus? If it's the former, it's going to be PAINFULLY slow. If it's the latter, that's really cheap cos normally it should be $50-60+. Cardbus readers are actually faster than quite a few generic usb 2.0 card readers. I have a lexar one permanently in my laptop.

I think you can tell which is which by the colour of the interface at the end of the card that goes into the slot. If it's gold, it's Cardbus.

Mine is the 16-bit version la. Slow, but I've learned to live with it.

 

[hacknet]

how slow is it? the mic usb 2.0 one i got is not only slow, its unreliable.

 

[ExplorerZ]

how slow is it? the mic usb 2.0 one i got is not only slow, its unreliable.

try for sandisk extreme reader... not cheap but works d**n well... got a read/write speed of about 7-8MB/s on my kingston 50x SD. :thumbsup:

 

[Denosha]

Didnt notice.

where did u get the cardbus ? does it work with all laptops or are there any design specifications?

Last time i got it from Alan Photo in SLS. They don't seem to sell it anymore. Most "middle-aged" laptops should support cardbus. But i think those newer ones with only ExpressCard slots (the replacement for PCMCIA/Cardbus) are NOT backward compatible so you need to get a ExpressCard reader which i think is even faster than the Cardbus one.

how slow is it? the mic usb 2.0 one i got is not only slow, its unreliable.

The 16-bit PCMCIA card readers would be many times slower than a USB2.0 one.

try for sandisk extreme reader... not cheap but works d**n well... got a read/write speed of about 7-8MB/s on my kingston 50x SD. :thumbsup:

The Transcend usb2.0 multi-card reader is cheap (not as cheap as those generic brand ones though) and more importantly fast. Check out the benchmarks: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-8462. I've got that reader and I really do get about 16MB/s with my transcend 120x CF cards. It's since been replaced with a newer model with SDHC support. Not sure if the performance is still as good or maybe possibly better.

 

[coffee3in1]

I have it too, it's seems to be slower than USB type. But it's always on my laptop so it will not be misplaced when travel (unless the laptop is lost too... )