Customer Reviews

Belkin 15 AND 1 MEDIA READER/WRITER ( F5U249 )

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Belkin now has the Revision 3 (three) of the product available which supports 2GB SD Cards. Check if you have a little sticker on the bottom of your cardreader.

I contacted technical support if the product number and asked "guess what my problem is", Support guessed right and assumed its the 2 GB SD problem and offered an exchange free of charge.

I give Belkin a big plus for the hassle free exchange, however a similar big minus for selling outdated products in the first place and hoping no one notices. Therefor, three stars.

With the size of memory cards going up and up, you don't want to be stuck with a reader that doesn't support > 1GB size cards. And no, they don't tell you that it doesn't support > 1GB in their product literature or manual. Note that I checked with Belkin Tech Support (who I must admit replied relatively quickly). See below:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Belkin Technical Support. Unfortunately our media readers do not support media over 1Gig. If you have further questions or comments, please feel free to contact us at (800) 223-5546 ext. 2263 Between the hours of 6:00 am - 5:00 pm Pacific time.

Brad Mergenthaler
Belkin Technical Support

Compact, fast and looks good on my desk. Works well for all cards but doesn't recognize SD cards 2GB and larger. I wish I would've known that when I bought it last year. I contacted customer support to see if I could exchange for a newer version or if they had a firmware fix. No on both. They just said it doesn't support 2GB or larger cards.

I've been using this card reader for 2 years. I use it daily and enjoy it very much. I bought a 2GB SD card for my Treo and unfortunately this card reader will not work with it. The 2GB card works in my Treo and on my Compaq Laptop (Texas Instruments chipset). So I called Belkin tech support and the rep was very familiar with this type of call. He said there is nothing he can do for me at this time, Belkin products do not support 2GB yet. Oh well.

I needed a reader for SmartMedia cards and this one works perfectly. Just stick the card in and it shows up in your folders correctly identified. It also reads all the other cards I use just as easily. Usb port hook up is as simple as you can have also.

If you want to use any card over 1GB with a card reader, don't get this one!

In no literature does it say that it can't read anything over 1GB, but it can't. Buyer beware!

I do highly recommend Verbatim 15 in 1. It reads my 2GB MiniSD just fine.

The Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 15-in-1 Media Reader & Writer allows you to transfer files between your PC and flash media cards. You can also transfer files between flash cards, since they just show up as external drives (e.g., F:, G:, H:, etc.) in your Windows Explorer. The 15 supported flash formats are:

1. xD Picture Card (used in Fujifilm and Olympus digicams)
2. CompactFlash I
3. CompactFlash II
4. Microdrive (from IBM or Hitachi or Toshiba)
5. SmartMedia
6. Secure Digital (the most popular kind of flash)
7. Mini SD (used in the latest Sanyo cell phones and various Pocket PC phones)
8. Multimedia Card
9. RSMMC (a smaller type of Multimedia Card that requires an adapter)
10. Memory Stick
11. Memory Stick PRO (higher-capacity Memory Stick)
12. Memory Stick MagicGate
13. Memory Stick Duo (half-sized as Memory Stick)
14. Memory Stick Duo PRO
15. Memory Stick MagicGate Duo

As you can see, many formats are just variants of one another. The reader/writer has four slots, so you can stick in at most four flash memory cards at a time.

The reader/writer installed painlessly and started working right away, but I soon found out speed was not consistent, even when reading from or writing to the same card. I use this with Windows XP Professional SP 2. I usually get about 10-15MB/sec of performance with my external hard drives (e.g. Sony Micro Vault 5GB, Seagate 200GB USB 2.0), and with my previous Dazzle media reader/writer, I was getting around 5MB/sec on average. (I actually use a dedicated Sony Memory Stick reader/writer which I bought a while ago for my PSP, and its average speed is around 10MB/sec.)

But with the Belkin -- which is powered directly by the USB port -- I get anywhere from 1MB/sec (USB 1.1 performance) to 10MB/sec. It's not a question of file size as my measurement has been normalized around that. (What I mean is, no matter what operation system you use, it takes more time to read/write a large number of small files than a small number of large files, even when the total size is the same. This is due to the way file systems handle files -- think of them as databases that must retrieve or create data entries.)

This is disappointing to me, since I like predictability when it comes to performance. This is true esp. because I got this to use with my laptop to transfer pictures on-the-go. If it takes too long to transfer, my laptop's battery might run low or I might be in a hurry to board a flight. Anyway, while the overall performance of the Belkin is tolerable, I'm disappointed.

But it still deserves 4 stars because it's small, stylish, and installs easily. And it does accommodate pretty much all the different kinds of flash memory you can find. If you need a versatile media reader/writer, this is worthy of a look.

This thing is great! I bought it years ago when I first needed a compact flash card reader, and it's never failed me. I've taken it on trips and used the heck out of it and it's always worked great. It's totally plug-and-play and will show up as a regular drive in your My Computer menu.

Unfortunately it's a little outdated now and doesn't support the newer media types like SD, MicroSD, and XD. However, if you want a nice little CF reader, this is the one to get!

After trying to get a 2GB SD card to read, I got this from Tech Support:

Thank you for contacting Belkin Technical Support. Unfortunately our media readers do not support media over 1GIG for compact flash.


Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see that anywhere in the sales literature.

Other than that, this is a fantastic (and fast) device.

Update,

This device doesn't read 1gb SD card, which is a shame. This is not future proof and will now give it 3-stars


This is a nice looking device and is very compact. It is even smaller then my wallet. I don't have USB 2.0 so the speed performance with USB 1 isn't as fast as I thought, but it works fine.

This is a plug and play device, so you don't need to install the useless software that comes with the device. (For many of those that use Window XP) Why overload your computer with software that takes up hardrive space and might be using your ram in the background that is unnecessary. No technical support needed for this device, please. I have other Belkin product like a surge protecter and they work fine too.

I pick this over other card-reader because it can read 15 different media using 4 main slots (some media are really the same.) What this has is IBM Microdrive and xD Picture card that other older models don't carry both. I use the Sony Memory Stick and it took a couple minutes to transfer 128mb. I also use SD card and that is much faster.