At 09:33 AM 08/03/2005, Winsor Crosby wrote:
[snip]
>Apple is supposed to be bringing out a $35 adaptor to plug in your digital
>camera for a download. Don't be tempted by that
>Belkin card reader that plugs into it. I tried it and it is truly
>awful. It takes 30 minutes to download a 500 meg card and completely
>discharges the iPod in the process, although I don't have one of the
>new ones with the extended battery life.
I second Winsor's statements on the Belkin CF card reader. Supposedly
designed with Firewire inside, it's insanely slow (around 300 kilobits/sec,
which is less than 1% of Firewire's theoretical top speed), and although I
didn't have quite the battery issues he had, I found that on vacation I
could only dump four or five 256 Meg CF cards (at around 12 minutes each!)
before the iPod's battery was toast (not to mention the batteries in the
Belkin device, which only last for about 1.5 Gigs worth of transfer before
they crap out, too -- then you gotta put a new set of alkalines
in). Fortunately, I never shot more than 4 cards' worth of RAW files
(around 33 pictures per card) during a single day, so I could transfer and
then recharge every night.
Belkin supposedly promised to fix this problem with their card reader, but
to the best of my knowledge, they never did. It was the only option
available at the time, so I used it. But if Apple's adaptor works as
promised, the Belkin device is going into the garbage. I wouldn't even try
to sell it on yaBe. Expensive, poorly-engineered products tick me off big
time. "Broken as designed," indeed.
Garth
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