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Viking IntelliFlash 6-in-1 USB Flash Memory Reader

Viking IntelliFlash 6-in-1 USB Flash Memory Reader

List Price: $39.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: My sad, sad, Viking saga
Review: After a few hours of fiddling with FAQ's and device driver updates from the company Web site (the manual is filled with errors and basically useless) I was finally able to get the product to read my SD card under Windows 2000. In the process my computer stopped recognizing the internal CD-RW. I contacted Viking support through the Web. The helpful support representative then led me through the process of completely uninstalling the device (yeah, the one that took hours to install). At the end he asked me if my CD-RW was working. When I said no, he said the problem was with my CD and closed the case. I have replaced the CD-RW and it still doesn't work, and in fact nothing on my USB port now works, but it is pretty hard to reinstall the drivers without a CD drive! This cheap device has cost me hundreds in time and frustration! I only wish I could give it a lower rating than 1 star.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Will not work on WIN98
Review: Need a multi card reader for WIN 98? This isn't it.
There wasn't any drivers on the install CDRom just 2 (Inaccessable)CDA files.
Once I downloaded the drivers it still wasn't seen by windows 98.
Tested on a Win XP machine with no problems found yet.

Viking should have a better QA program to ensure their product(s) are ready for the consumer with the supporting software.

I will give thier support staff a chance to help then I will ship it back if I'm not 110% satisfied.

Bottom line-Looks great-Works great on XP-USELESS for WIN98.
John

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Time has moved on
Review: This was a great product when USB1.1 was the only game in town. Now, USB 2.0 is out (much faster!!) and common on most new (<1 year old) PCs. Should be able to get a similar product (Dazzle for example) that provides both USB 2.0 & 1.1 speeds for <$40 regular, $20-ish on sale.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: pretty slow transfers
Review: This was my first media reader/writer. Everything works fine with it and I was very happy with it for 6 months. Then I got another reader/writer (Compact flash only), which was free with purchase of a 64M card... both cost $$$. The new reader is made by PQI, P/N FPTS-C, which is a cheapie you can get for ~$$$ on internet). I tried it out and its speed blew away the Viking (~8-10 times faster). I tried the same CF card with the same data on it in both readers, and even tried the readers on another computer (both computers USB 1.0), but results the same. I also have a Smart Media card and its transfer is about same as CF on the Viking reader, maybe a little slower. Later I built an AMD 2100+ computer, Soyo Platinum Dragon motherboard, USB 2.0, with built-in CF/Smart Media reader. Again the built-in CF transfer rate is about the same as the cheapie reader on USB 1.0 (although USB 2.0 is faster, but the 12x card speed, =1.8M, doesn't surpass the USB 1.0 by enough to make much of a difference), but the Viking was just as slow on USB 2.0 as 1.0.
Luckily most of my media needs are CF, so I use the cheapie at work and the built-in at home. I have the Viking connected in case one of these days I run across need for on of the other formats. I only wish I hadn't bought it until now, now that they're 1/2 the price what I paid for it (50 vs 25).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not quite flawless
Review: As stated in other reviews, this product doesn't work with Windows 98-- Which I discovered the hard way when I took it to work & tried to help the CEO with his digitial camera. However, it works almost perfectly with a Mac-- While transferring is a breeze, you do have to disconnect the drive before you set the computer to sleep mode, otherwise the screen turns gray & crashes the computer; For the price (which included a rebate when I bought it), it still seems the best deal around despite some drawbacks.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Will Not Work on Win98 System
Review: Like other reviewers, I can't get this piece of junk to work on my Win98 machine. On my Windows 2000 machine it works, but with issues. Skip it and find something with less problems, more support.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Works but with problems
Review: What attracted me to this reader was the great price and its features. Installation was straight forward. Even before rebooting, I could see the addition drives appearing on Windows Exploere. Then I notice the intermittent floppy disk access. My floppy drive kept coming on every few seconds, as if it was trying to read a disk. Still the reader worked fine at the point. Then I started getting the blue screen showing USBATA.SYS being the culprit. Now, I leave it unplugged when turning on my PC and plug it in only if I need to use it. I am working with their tech support trying to resolve this. Because their support is weekdays only (no weekends or evenings), I can only call them during the day at work, then try something at home and call them back the next day. It's very tedius process. If I don't get it resolved in a few days, I'd probably return it. I am running Windows 2000 with SP2 on a Dell XPS T500 with 384 MB RAM.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good, but too big.
Review: My WindowsXP system immediately detected the USB reader, and created drives for each of the slots. Quite handy when you want to read and write to each type of flash memory. There are 2 downsides though, it doesn't have built-in memory and it's too big. The PQI 7-in-1 reader I have has built-in 128MB storage and it's just the size of a credit card. I prefer that.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: what a savings on battery life
Review: This IntelliFlash has worked really well with my Compactflash card however I have had problems using it a Smartmedia card. Not sure why? Definitely would recommend it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: good tool
Review: this inexpensive gadget solves an industry-wide problem, of competing and proprietary standards for increasinlgy popular memory cards, making the life of the average consumer so much easier.

it installs quickly (plug and play in win 2000 professional) and works flawlessly.


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