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Viking USB IntelliFlash Reader for CompactFlash/SmartMedia

Viking USB IntelliFlash Reader for CompactFlash/SmartMedia

List Price: $99.99
Your Price: $59.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not Your Daddy's Oldsmobile
Review: I had been suffering through the serial connection on my Olympus D450Z Digital Camera for some time and growing old in the process trying to download pictures from my camera. Even my friends who have other digital cameras (with USB and serial interfaces) complain.

The Viking IntelliFlash USB Flash Memory Reader is easy to install and even easier to use. Once setup is complete, it sets up 2 drives on your PC that reference each of the slots. Just plug your SmartMedia or Compact Flash into the appropriate slot and you are good to go. Transfers are VERY fast and effortless. You will not be disappointed.

FYI, I am running on a PIII/450 with 256MB of RAM running Windows 98.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Josie's Review
Review: Just purchased Viking IntelliFlash USB Flash Memory Reader and set it up myself. I have the Windows ME operating system and it took me all of 10 minutes to install it without a hitch. Everything works fine. Product is exceptionally fast.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: there should be a "no-star" rating for this product!
Review: I wish I had read the negative reviews of this product before I bought and used it. It's touted as being extremely fast and simple. Yes, it took a few minutes to unpack it and hook it up to my brand new Titanium G4 Powerbook, Mac OS 9.1. It was simple to plug in my Compact Flash Cards. And it simply ERASED 100 MB of pictures I took in a month's time all of which are irreplaceable memories in a blink of an eye! I'm not bothering to contact the Viking people. I don't want to risk anymore of my pictures. I hope Amazon accepts my return.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Easy as Pie
Review: It was a wonderful experience to hook this item up to the USB hub and basically have it install itself. It reads the Smartmedia cards just fine and will always have a place on my computer desktop. It works with Win2000 too.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: If you hook it up correctly, no problem
Review: I was somewhat frustrated when this product wouldn't work when I plugged it into the spare USB port on my keyboard. I tried loading and unloading the software many times. I was so frustrated that I considered returning the reader. Then my wife, who actually took the time to read the instructions carefully, pointed out the fact that I had not plugged the device directly into one of the computer's USB ports or into a "powered" USB hub. Once I plugged into the powered hub I was up and running in no time (much to the delight of my wife and my personal embarassment). The download speeds are great. No more waiting almost one minute per picture for a serial download from my digital camera. Now all of the images pop up in seconds. What a timesaver. Guess this proves the addage "if all else fails, read the instructions." Carefully.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very good !
Review: I use it frequently to transfer pictures from my digital camera's compactflash card. It has two slots one for smartmedia and other for PCMCIA cards. Each slot appears as a drive letter under "My Computer". The compactflash card goes into an adapter which goes into the smartmedia slot.

The read and write speed is very good.

One problem I had - After installing the reader, I found that my Windows ME would hang during start up (on average once every 6-7 times). First I couldn't determine it was because of this reader, but then I discovered that the machine was hanging immediately after the red LED on the reader lits up. I downloaded the latest driver for this reader. It seems to have fixed the problem. The machine hasn't hung in two days.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is an almost perfect little peripheral
Review: Anyone with a digital camera knows that transferring images from camera to PC via serial port is a tedious business - when it works at all. It is painfully slow (taking me nearly an hour to move a mere 16MB card's worth of data), and often irritatingly finicky in accepting the connection. Did you plug in the cord first, or turn on the camera first? Did you boot the special software first, or plug in the cord? Once you got the thing running, though, a download seemed to take forever.

As a result, I've had my eye on the Viking IntelliFlash for a long time, and when I ordered a 64MB card, I knew I had to have it. It has, so far, exceeded my most optimistic expectations.

The device itself is smaller than I expected, about the size of a deck of playing cards. It has only one cord, permanently affixed to the back of the unit -- no power cord. Nice. There are two slots for the media in the front, a couple of discrete ready lights on the top, and a very subtle silk screened Viking logo. It's an attractively designed peripheral.

It comes with a CD. The software installation was very simple, with the usual few caveats for installing USB devices. Reboot and your Viking IntelliFlash is good to go.

Once the drivers are installed and the unit is plugged into a USB port, Windows sees the IntelliFlash as two new removable drives (in my case, D: and E:). Two drives because the IntelliFlash handles both Smartmedia and CompactFlash in separate slots. These new "drives" show up in Windows Explorer or 3rd party file managers. To transfer digital pictures (the only experience I have had), you take the card from the camera and stick it in the IntelliFlash. You then open the appropriate drive for your media and there is your data. Move the files with your favorite method - cut and paste, drag and drop, or menu commands.

That's the beauty of this device. Media on your card looks just like files on a disc. So, instead of proprietary software to suck the data through the narrow straw of your serial port, you can manipulate the data like any other files on your computer.

Oh, and being USB, it's hot-swappable. To prevent dust from drifting into the slots I keep it in my drawer. When I'm ready to look at pictures, I pull it out, plug it in, and wait ten seconds or so until Windows recognizes the connection and displays my new favorite drives, D: and E:. I open My Computer, navigate to Drive E:, copy the files over to My Pictures in drive C:, and I'm done. What used to take an hour (and sometimes a few cuss words) now takes less than a minute.

This is really a great little device, and it works so well that it goes way past luxury gizmo toward real necessity. I would encourage anyone who has to move data from flash media to a PC via serial to make this purchase. I have had zero trouble, and great results.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Look, at the tech info!
Review: It's a multi reader that helps you from plugging and unplugging the usb ports. Most computer have only 2.The IntelliFlash USB Flash Memory Reader is a multi-format, memory reading device for that rapidly growing group of Flash Memory users who want to speed up transfers of data, music or images to their PC. Plugging directly to your computer's USB port, the IntelliFlash allows you to achieve transfer speeds of up to 1.5Mb/second, or fifty times that of the interface that comes with most digital cameras or MP3 players. In addition, the Viking IntelliFlash is compatible with SmartMedia, PCM CIA Types I and II, ATA cards, and CompactFlash. So whether you're transferring large files, managing MP3s, or working with images from your digital camera, this fast, inexpensive device is all you needInterface: USB connection Image transfer rate: 1.5 MBps PC card types: SmartMedia, PCMCIA Types I and II, ATA cards and CompactFlash LED: Indicates SmartMedia, CompactFlash, or ATA card usage

System requirements: Pentium level CPU or Power Macintosh; Windows 95, 98, 2000 or Macintosh OS 8.6 and later; USB support Power supply: +5 volts from USB port directly Operating temperature: 0 to 70 degrees C Storage temperature: -40 to 70 degrees C Relative humidity: 95 percent

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disappointing product
Review: I was pretty disappointed for the following reasons: 1- It is bulky when compared to equivalent readers on the market 2- I expected transfer rates for Compact Flash cards of 1MB/s, but the average is around 300kB/s, which is the transfer rate attained by connecting directly the camera to a PC using a USB cable. 3- CF cards are hard to take out, as the eject button takes the PCMCIA adapter out of the reader, instead of ejecting the CF card. However, I was happily surprised by its ease of installation it terms of drivers, and by the presence of a PCMCIA adapter.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works like a charm
Review: It took all of two minutes to install this reader. The instruction book was easy to read and concise. Installed the software without reader hooked up, shut down PC (my step), plugged in reader, turn on PC (my step), insert smartmedia into lower slot, have 'my computer' find the removable media drive, and away we go.

You don't use the eject button for smartmedia so I don't care if min eject button works or not. The USB cable is rather short. The reader's green light stays on all of the time and the red light comes on during read/write activity. I am using the Olympus 64 meg smartmedia card. Everything works like a charm on a Dell with Win98se software.


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