Customer Reviews

Lexar Dual-Slot USB 2.0 Flash Memory Card Reader RW035-001

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

<Update 12/16/2011> This still our primary card reader and it is used on average once a week and it has never disappointed us with reliability or speed. All of our other CF readers failed to achieve this. We even use the SD slot more and more because when you walk away, it does not really matter if it is 18MB/s or 24MB/s. Note that they now have a USB 3.0 version.

<Here is the original review 6 weeks after purchasing it in 12/2008>

I recently purchased a Canon Vixia HF100 camcorder and knew the files would be HUGE, so I was looking for the fastest SD card download set up I could find.

I initially bought this Lexar Pro UDMA Dual-Slot Reader and a SanDisk 16GB Extreme III 30MB/s SDHC card hoping for at least 20MB/s performance from the SDHC Card.

Alas, this Lexar reader only gave me 18MB/s performance on this SDHC card, so I purchased the Sandisk SDDR199 to achieve 24MB/s for the SDHC card and I use this Lexar reader for our CF cards.

I like the Lexar reader a lot. I perceive it to be of better quality and I like that it protects the slots from my kids who have already bent the pins on another CF reader by jamming something into the inviting slot. I like the simplicity of having just two slots. The included usb cable is too short to reach my desk, however it is a standard cable so I just use the cable for the Sandisk (1 cable, two readers).

I am going throw away all the other card readers that have proven themselves to be highly unreliable, slow to respond and not worth their cheap price.

I would love to see someone make a firewire (or esata) SD/CF combo reader because I read that Firewire CF card readers are getting about 40 MB/s.

I really like the Lexar Dual-slot USB reader. It's fast, compact, and comes with great documentation.

The "0" part is I ordered it from Beach Camera through Amazon.com. The package looked factory-sealed to me, but even though the box and the documentation stated the USB cable was included--wait for it--the USB cable was missing.

Yep..I had an extra cable and was in business right away, but jeez--yet another camera dealer apparently stripping accessories from products!

WARNING!!!! THIS READER DOESN'T FORMAT 32GB CF CARDS. I would have given it a four star if lexar is upfront with this info. No such info can be found any where. I actually found out about this after going through all the trouble of diagnosing why it doesn't format my new 32gb cf card myself first, then I called lexar tech support which the tech struggled for a long time before he learned and concluded that this lexar card reader does not support 32gb yet. Doesn't make a lot of sense because my other 5 year old cf card reader reads and formats the new 32gb just fine, but it's the truth. The sad part is that they don't have any info on any firmware update for it.

UPDATE!!
Now I am completely disappointed with this card reader, it's worth half a star now. I bought this card reader for my new 32GB CF card to be used on the canon 5D2. After I format the 32GB CF card and used on the 5D2, this Lexar card reader can't even read it and hangs my computer. My other old and slower CF card reader reads my new 32GB CF card just fine. I asked Lexar tech support and he suggested I buy two 16GB instead. DUHH!!! I bought this lexar card reader solely for the extra speed for handling large memory cards, not smaller ones.

I have a 32GB UDMA CF card that I use in my Canon 5D Mark II. I bought this hoping to get fast transfer of video and pictures from this memory card. When I used this reader with a smaller memory card (8 GB CF and 16 GB SD card) it worked fine. When I used my 32 GB card it hung up on download and crashed. When I tried to re-open the card it was showing up as if it was not formatted. I tried to put it back in the camera and the camera no longer recognized it as formatted. I tried running data recovery software and it gave several thousand "read errors". Finally I used an $8 card reader borrowed from a friend and ran the same software to successfully recover my images. This software cost me $100 to recover the images that this CF reader damaged!

THIS CARD READER IS GARBAGE IF YOU HAVE A 32GB CARD! Actually it is worse than garbage, garbage wouldn't work this actually caused damage and could have caused me to lose data. Luckily it only cost me $100. I wish I would have believed the review here that already states this with regard to 32 GB cards.

Even if you don't have a 32GB card I would stay away - some day in the future you might have one and I would hate for you to take the risk of loosing any of your data.

Thanks to Prosoft who makes Data Rescue II for the Mac - this software saved the pictures and videos from my family vacation.

I got this card reader for use with my MacBook Pro which lives inside a Pelican briefcase. This card reader fits perfectly in a pouch on the briefcase and what's more, it has just two slots, CF & SD, which happens to be the only cards I'll ever need to read. It's fast and reliable. I originally went with a cheap multi-card reader and it worked, but it would take 45 minutes to download a 2GB CF card. That was simply unacceptable so I went and got this. Now my 2GB card takes less than two minutes to download. Big difference.

If you are in the market for a CF & SD card reader, this one is perfect for you... I think so anyway : )

I bought this to read my Lexar Professioinl 4GB SDHC card at 133x speed. It came with a USB cable. I bought the reader from Amazon and not through the Marketplace. It does not take a long time to transfer my photos from the card to my computer as it is fairly quick.

The reader is enclosed in a clear protective case and when you need it, press the sides and the reader pops up. Press the reader back in the case after you are finished. The reader is small as it fits in the palm of your hand.

First I bought a Lexar professional UDMA 16 GB card. Then I bought this card reader, thinking it would be fast and accurate with the Lexar card. But it corrupted about 10% of my photos during transfer to Photoshop Elements 5.0. I could not get a refund from Ace Photo, but they got Lexar to accept a return for a new card reader, but same problem. Waste of $36 and a lot of time and frustration. I bought at Office Depot a Sony multi-card reader/writer mrw62E-SI that works fine with my new Lexar 16GB card.

I bought this just to speed things up. It does it! It is one of two top rated readers on professional photography web sites.

One of the main things that brought me to it is the dual card function. CF has been (still is) the standard in most professional cameras. Some have added a second card in SDHC for backup or simultaneous writing.

For a trip I am about to go on, this is excellent. My pro cameras can download and my girl friend's point-and-shoot uses SDHC.

The other little touches that pros can appreciate: They put a slim rubber piece all around the bottom. No more sliding around the table!! Also, it closes like a clam shell. Not a big deal; just another dust free addition.

I don't have the 32GB problem so I cannot address it. Three things keep me in the 2GB-4GB-8GB market.
1. I have to send cards in for edit many times during a shoot. If I filled even a 2GB card, I over shot.
2. I can buy 32GB's worth of 2GB and 4GB for a lot less than one 32GB card.
3. Even when woking for myself, filling 32GB cards could spell disaster!! It is better to have work spread out on multiple cards in case of failure or loss of one.

Just for kicks I tested it with a Sandisk SDHC Ducati--one of the fastest cards out there. It works just fine.

A great professional investment.

I purchased this UDMA card reader despite some of the reviews here which allege that the reader will corrupt a Sandisk 32gb Extreme card, which is one of the cards I use with this unit. I have not found the Lexar card reader corrupts the card when formatting. I clocked both the Lexar CF card reader against my Dell built in CF card reader using a full 32gb Sandisk Extreme CF card rated at 60mb per second transfer rate. The Lexar is 2.3 times faster in downloading Canon RAW CR2 files. I really appreciate the design as well which protects the card slots when not in use. This will be especially useful when I take the reader on trips stuff into my already too full camera bag. Highly recommended for both speed and design.

I purchased this to replace an older compact flash card reader that I managed to destroy by putting the card in incorrectly. I initially bought another of the same brand (Sandisk) but found that it was incredibly slow at reading my memory cards - about 10 times slower than the previous reader.

This one worked great right out of the box - just plugged it in, inserted a CF card and began importing my images at high speed. The speed of the reader seems quite fast and it also seems well made. I can download about 400 raw format images from my Canon 7D in around two minutes.

It snuggles down inside of its plastic "frame" until you are ready to use it. Then you just squeeze the buttons on each side to pop up the reader and expose the two card slots - one for CF cards and one for CD cards. The reader comes with a reasonable length USB cable - about 3' long.

All in all this seems like an excellent product and I recommend it.