TECH-COM 25 in 1 Memory Card Reader

TECH-COM 25 in 1 Memory Card Reader

Milind Bandekar, Dec 14, 2005 1813 hrs IST

The assembly looks pretty similar to an 8-bit video game cartridge and its plastic shell makes it lighter in weight as well.

Supports various memory cards, USB powered, Good performance Light and compact, Easy plug and play connectivity, Easy affordability

No dust protection to cover the open slots

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Expert Review

Devices such as notebooks, MP3 players, PDAs, digital camcorders and even mobile phones are commonly found with memory cards these days. Of course these devices can be attached to your computer using their internal method of connections, but this becomes a problem if you have a lot of devices. And not all of these devices can actually write to the memory cards at the fullest speed. A memory card reader is just one device that allows you to read and write directly to your memory card, usually at a much faster speed. Tech-Com offers a similar solution with their 25-in-1 memory card reader that lets you work with up to 25 different memory card formats using just one single reading device.

Tech-Com's reader reads memory cards such as CF1, CF2, Turbo CF, Pro-CF, Microdrive, MS-MAGIC-GATE, MS-MAGIC-GATE-DUO, MS-MAGIC-GATE-DUO Media Card, MS-DUO, MS Media Card, MS-Pro DUO MS ROM, High Speed MS, SD, SD Highspeed, SD-II, Mini-SD, Ultra-SD, Turbo-SD, MMC, RS-MMC, MMC II, High Speed MMC, Smart Media Card and XD Picture Card, in one compact enclosure. PHEW!

The assembly looks pretty similar to an 8-bit video game cartridge and its plastic shell makes it lighter in weight as well. It's pretty compact, so finding a place for it to reside on your desk shouldn't be a problem. It comes with USB 2.0 connectivity and is backward compatible with USB 1.1 for older machines as well. Since it's a USB device, it needs no extra power other than what it draws from the USB port itself for it to function. Hence, taking it along with you when you travel is a snap.

The front edge has 4 separate slots, with the specific memory type loader mentioned on its upper and lower face of the shell accordingly. Inserting and removing the cards is an easy task, but due to the fact that the top cards somewhat stick out when inserted, removing cards from the bottom slots while the top slots are occupied, isn't as easy. On top of the reader are two small status LEDs that glow red in unoccupied mode, green when you insert a card and start accessing it. When a card is inserted into one of the slots, a new removable drive shows up in your drives list. You can then copy/move/delete files back and forth as you would from a regular hard drive.

To get an idea of how fast this USB 2.0 card reader is compared to a commonly available one in the market, we conducted a few basic transfer tests with a 104 MB file and three different and widely used memory cards (MMC, Compact Flash and Pro Duo). This ideally shouldn t be a concern, since the cards themselves don't provide much of a high rate of transfer as compared to the capabilities of USB 2.0. But we still decided to see if this device was any different or better even marginally over others. The results we came across are computed as follows:

The time taken to copy a 104 MB file on an MMC card using the Tech-Com card reader was about 1 min 26 sec. Using Compact Flash and Pro Duo, the time taken by the card reader 55 and 36 secs respectively. This comes to around 1.7 to 1.8 MB per second on an average. The cards themselves aren t capable of very high speeds, so these scores are acceptable.

Final Verdict

The 25 in 1 memory card reader by Tech-Com is a useful appliance for users looking to swap, manage or backup data from various memory cards under one roof in a simplified interface with a single USB connection. This card reader is currently available in market for mere Rs 275 with a year s warranty. An excellent and highly affordable solution for any heavy memory card user!