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Portable Innovation Technology PIT MemPlug SmartMedia Adaptor Memory Card Springboard Module

Portable Innovation Technology PIT MemPlug SmartMedia Adaptor Memory Card Springboard Module

List Price: $49.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Rocket science
Review: After having my Handspring Visor Neo for a few months, I started to run out of space in the internal RAM. So I finally bought the MemPlug SmartMedia adapter and a 64 Meg card. Now almost all of my memory woes are finally gone.

The Memplug adapter fits into the springboard slot in the back of the unit. At most it adds about an ounce or two to the units total weight. It comes with several applications already loaded on the unit, including a file mover, photo application, and document reader. The document reader, CSpotRun, can access files that are stored on the memory card. This is what really sold me on the device. Since I like to carry around e-books on my Handspring, this will allow me to have more than two or three books available at any point in time.

One of the things that annoyed me about this device is the amount time that the applications that access the memory card take to load up. I understand this is probably because it is loading the file into memory. While it doesn't take that long, it is still annoying.

I also had one other minor problem. When I first started using the card it seemed to act strange at times. After a quick visit to the company's website, I downloaded a new driver for the unit and that cleared up everything.

In closing, the MemPlug SmartMedia adaptor is something that should be on the buy list for all Handspring users. It works well and does what it says. For the price, the ability to increase the memory available to your handheld is well worth it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Get one NOW if you don't have one already!
Review: Fell apart in my hands upon first use. Software not preloaded, indicating that it proabably had never been tested. Mechanically fragile-and memory card doesn't fit cleanly. This module is for backup of important data--well, you won't feel very protected using this thing since it could fail upon the first attempt to retrieve your data. If this was the only way to back up your Handspring, I'd say get rid of the Handspring and go back to paper and pencil since with this you'll probably lose that important data just when you need to retrieve it after a Handspring hard reset.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS [thing]

NEGATIVE 5 STARS!!!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Bad product
Review: Finding the 8 or 16 MB on your Visor getting a little crowded? This is without a doubt *the* module to get to relieve your memory crunch woes. Any of the Memplug modules (SM/CF/MS/SD) provide the ability to store and run programs on the card, freeing up the RAM for other things. Plus the memory cards can be used for other things as well. Use a card in your camera to take some snapshots, then pop it into the Memplug and carry the photos around with you on your PDA. There are some limitations to accessing programs on the card, but most programs should live quite nicely on the card...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works great unless you expect more than what was promised
Review: I have an "old" Visor Deluxe. I ended up giving away my 8MB flash module when I got my MemPlug. I use Launcher III as my application launcher. It automatically recognizes the PRC files in a specific directory on the card. It works seamlessly and flawlessly for programs like games where no databases are involved. In fact, I have over 100 Palm games on a 16MB smart media card. The fact that I might have to move some database files to RAM in order to launch the game is not really an issue. Most of these wouldn't run from my flash module either. I have another card with 32MB of books and Bible translations on it. If I want to look something up, I don't have to wait until I get home to hotsync. I just stick in the card and copy it down.

The card *has* made me rethink how I use modules. It is less like floppy disk that you can read and write to and more like a CD-ROM...capable of huge amounts of data and capable of running directly off the CD in some circumstances. The amount of data I can now carry with me (80MB on 5 cards) is well worth the few seconds it takes to copy some data file down to the Visor Ram. And, as we have already seen, Palm developers are beginning to recognize the possibilities here and program for them. I would definately buy this again.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Rocket science
Review: I have had nothing but trouble trying to use this. PiMover is a great idea, but unfortunately the documentation is written in something that looks similar to English, but makes little sense! It's one of those where foreigners write the manual, and no one reviews it for English sensibility. I managed to transfer a few files by playing around with it, but even now don't know how I did it, so trying to repeat it means starting all over again. For me, this has been a waste of time and money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: MEMPLUG IS THE BEST SOLUTION!
Review: I've owned my MEMPLUG for almost five months now and it just keeps getting better? How? The program PiDirect expands the usefulness of MEMPLUG. I had quickly run out of room on my 8 meg Visor Prism. Adding the MEMPLUG and a 64 Meg SmartMedia card, initially just increased my storage capacity but was cheaper than buying a 16 Meg internal ram upgrade. Then PiDirect was released in June 2001. The curtain lifted and the stage came alive with the abundance of programs I wanted to carry and easily access on my Visor Prism. There is still a fairly steep learning curve to using PiDirect, but nothing beats it for utility, stability, and price. It has a minimal drain on battery power when compared to Compact Flash cards. The Manufacturer, PIT, is the most responsive author of software out there with a tremendous customer service team that answers questions and troubleshoots around the clock, 24 hours a day. I never waited longer than 1/2 day to get a response to an email (usually within an hour). And, they upgrade rapidly in response to validated "bugs" and the practical "wishlists" submitted by customers. If you have a Visor with only 8 or even 16 Meg ram, you'll love this product.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Turns your visor into a portable library!
Review: Ok... I would give this 4 stars, as it actually does require a bit of file manipulation, but i want to make up for the negative people below.

Basically, if you buy this, spend the extra money and buy a smart media reader for your pc. Then you can copy palm apps and documents directly to your smart media card, and thus the memplug.

It /does/ run apps directly from the memplug, using the recently released PiDirect. PiDirect is being sold seperately from their website for 19.99, but i think its 9.99 until october 1st 2001. It is worth every penny. It is also supported by Launcher III, which has a feature that will copy a program from the memplug and run it automatically. It's not as nice as PiDirect, but it's free.

I currently keep almost all my non-essential apps (read games, gizmos, etc) on the memplug, along with tons and tons of doc files and several pictures.

Like I said above, it introduces some file handling to the visor, and if you don't know what that means, this may not be for you. But if you are willing to put up with a little bit of file handling, you will find out how much fun it really is to have 40 megabytes of eBook with you at all times, and still 4mb free on your internal memory. :)

Highly reccommended.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Worst of the Worst
Review: Product works great for a few months, then becomes unreadable despite all updates, Visor stops recognizing the module.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good Solution
Review: The Software:
The software for your PDA is great; it will automatically copy a lot of utilities to the card which allows you to perform a whole range of different things.

The software package also comes bundled with a few demo apps, which are pretty neat too.

The power usage is good; it really doesn't take much power to run the device at all.

Finally, customer service is excellant. I had a few questions concerning this product, and they responded immediately with a friendly response.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 128 MB Prism!
Review: When I first got my MemPlug, I used it mainly to store files and for Backups, which worked very well with MemPlug's PiBackup. I could also run gMovie and read Docs via a special version of CSpotRun. Because of it's limited use, my main module was still the 16MB Hagiwara FlashCard.

However, the MemPlug's usefulness made a major leap when PiDirect was introduced. With it, I could now run almost any application right off a smartmedia card. I can even access any database stored on the card, databases that are many times larger than my internal RAM.

Currently, my TomeRaiders data alone is about 40 MB with the IMDB (12MB) and Encyclopedia (12MB) being the largest. Accessing these data was seamless and felt just a little slower than my 16MB.

This has made my Visor Prism a 128MB monster and with 256 MB cards coming soon...

PiDirect is a bargain at the intro price and compared to the 8MB and 16MB modules currently available. Also with memPlug comes installed application like gMovie 2.0 which supports sound and 4 other Pi software which works great. I have since put aside my 16 MB Hagiwara and is very happy I was an early adopter of this groundbreaking storage solution for the Palm platform.


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