Customer Reviews

Lexar Professional Express Card Compact Flash Reader LRWEXPPRBNA

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Before purchasing Lexar's new Expresscard CF reader, I was skeptical that this model would be any better some of the previous attempts by other vendors. These devices historically have worked very poorly, on Mac notebooks in particular. Many of the reviews mention kernel panics after merely plugging the card into the slot!

Lexar's reputation for quality products led me to finally try to replace my Firewire 400 CF reader (also by Lexar) with one of these, and so far I haven't been disappointed.

I did an apples-to-apples comparison of my new Expresscard CF reader versus the Firewire 400 (chained via my Iomega Ego triple interface external HD to the MacBookPro's FW 800 port). My Transcend 133X 32GB CF card contained 548 Canon RAW images weighing in at just under 15 GB. For this test, they were copied to my MBP's internal SATA drive.

The results? The Expresscard reader copied these images in 6:57 (or 35 MB/sec average throughput) versus the Firewire 800 reader in 16:57 (or 14 MB/sec average throughput) for an improvement of 2.5X!

Anecdotally I'd say performance of the Expresscard reader is on par with the Firewire 800 card readers I've used, but I've only got one FW800 port on my MBP, which is often being used by my external HD. Unless you dedicate your Expresscard slot to some other purpose (or don't have one), I see no reason to buy a slow, bulky USB or Firewire card reader with this faster, less expensive option available.

UPDATE 8/11/10:
Disregard my original review (left intact below) as everything seems to be OK now. I did not realize I needed to install a driver on my Mac to use this reader. NO DRIVER COMES IN THE RETAIL PACKAGE. Indeed, all there is is a small, easy to overlook (well, I did not notice it) sticker with the world's tiniest print instructing you to download the not-included driver.

Only after a call to tech support did I realize I needed to go online and get the missing driver. I did, and all now seems well. If anything, not only is it not crashing, but it seems to be reading the CF cards even faster. I have now upgraded my rating from 1 to 4 stars; I withhold a 5 star rating only because the REQUIRED driver is NOT included in the retail package. (And, yes, I realize drivers need to be updated periodically, but not including any driver at all is still a questionable decision by Lexar.)

Now that the driver issue has been resolved, here are some transfer time test results, comparing this ExpressCard reader to Lexar's own CompactFlash FireWire 800 reader. Two different CF cards were used, as indicated. CPU was a MacBook Pro, 17" Intel Core i7, 500GB SSD drive (with a lot of unused space on it), connecting via FireWire 800 port or ExpressCard slot as appropriate (and no other devices attached). Each test was performed twice, with the average transfer time posted below.

TEST ONE:
Lexar 600x UDMA CF card, 16GB, with 9.93 GB of photo data

using Lexar's CompactFlash FireWire 800 Reader:
133 seconds
using Lexar's ExpressCard CompactFlash Reader:
132 seconds

TEST TWO:
Lexar 300x UDMA CF card, 16GB, with 15.94 GB of photo data

using Lexar's CompactFlash FireWire 800 Reader:
339 seconds
using Lexar's ExpressCard CompactFlash Reader:
351 seconds

CONCLUSION:
While this ExpressCard reader is fast, it is no faster than Lexar's own FireWire 800 card reader connected via a FW 800 port (and, with 300x speed media, was actually just slightly slower). However, using the ExpressCard reader does free up the FireWire 800 bus for other purposes, such as for attaching external FW 800 drives, a not insignificant possible advantage. On the other hand, if you prefer to use the ExpressCard slot for other purposes, such as an eSATA card to attach eSATA drives, then the older Lexar FireWire 800 reader is an equally speedy choice to use instead of this newer ExpressCard reader.

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ORIGINAL REVIEW:
In a word: TERRIBLE!

I had extremely high hopes for this reader, but, out of 6 attempts to use it, my MacBook Pro hard crashed 3 times, i.e., kernel panics, requiring repairing and rebooting. The 3 times that it worked without crashing my Mac, it was indeed fast. But I cannot excuse such incredibly poor behavior, not to mention the resulting damage to my system software (and, yes, after each kernel panic, Disk Utility reported that there had been corruption that needed to be repaired).

FYI: MacBook Pro 17" 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, OS 10.6.3, 8 GB RAM

I currently have a laptop with 2 Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 7200 RPM hard drives in a RAID 0 stripe, and this reader maxes out! Currently I read at 60-85MB/second on average with a Lexar 16GB 600x memory card depending on the kinds of files, and my hard drives can't write any faster! I love Lexar for 1 reason: Their products actually work as they are labeled!

On a side note: I use Windows 7 x64

I anxiously awaited the release of this product since it was announced on Lexar's Website. I own a couple 8GB 300x Lexar CD cards and they have performed flawlessly. I have a Macbook Pro and always thought an insertable card reader straight into the bus would be awesome. It is very fast, as advertised, however in addition to the part that you insert the card into there is another 1/2" of very thin product that hangs out he the 34 card slot. It is very bendable, thin, and there is no way I would even think about leaving the reader in my computer when I put it in a carry bag. I am sure it would snap off with minimal pressure. I even have apprehension about leaving it in my laptop on it's elevated stand on my desktop (Griffin - great product). I am very disappointed with Lexar on the durability issue only. The reader does it's job from a functional standpoint, but I don't expect it to last long.
Calling it a Lexar Professional Express Card Compact Flash reader should only refer to the professional cards it reads.

It worked great and was super fast, then one day it wouldn't work. I used the driver from their website and was sure to burn it to a DVD and save the one that initially worked for me. But then it quit working so I uninstalled the driver, reinstalled, called support and got no help there. I checked the website and its the same version. I bought another of this reader and had the same experience so both got returned (thank you, Amazon!) I went with an off-brand UDMA CF ExpressCard reader and its working way better than this Lexar one and was only $14 (see:CompactFlash CF I/II Reader Adapter for Express Card ExpressCard 34/54 Slot (Support UDMA mode).) All my CF cards are Lexar, that's all I've ever bought, and I've never ever had a problem so this is pretty disappointing.

I have never bought anything so flimsy in my life. It feels like it's made out of cardboard and tin foil. 5 days after receiving it has come apart at the join and is bending in a I'm-going-to-break-soon kind of way. $35 for THIS? You've got to be out of your mind. Returning it immediately.

The larger card side is really nice because it grips the CF card, making sure it slides in straight and does not tweak the pins. The entire unit is about 1/2" too long and will not sit flush with my laptop, this makes me wonder if it will break easily. The large black casing side is made of cheap plastic, very thin. You need to hold it when you insert the card so as to not crack it. Too bad it is so cheap, I had higher hopes for a Lexar product.

The card reader is fast and because of that is worth the money. However, the construction is very unreliable. The black plastic is very very flimsy at the joint with the metal part which inserts in the laptop. Unfortunately you have to apply good amount of pressure to insert the card in the laptop and it can snap off with any bad move.

If you press to hard it will break off
If you accidentally bump the card reader while in the laptop it will break off
If you put the card in the bag without some hard case it will break off

The construction is not durable at all. Professionals should use the card for speed but have a good old USB reader on stand by when this thing breaks. In my opinion is not a question of IF but WHEN.

First off... Lexar is a great brand. I have a number of Lexar products including CF cards.

But this device is creating a kernel panic on my Macbook Pro every time I use it. Instead of recognizing the card as a card it recognizes it as another hard drive and makes the laptop flip out. I just returned from an out of town shoot and this happened again and again. To the point that I'm using a different, slower USB card reader now and am planning to return this device.

I used another Express Card reader before this with zero issues. I have no idea why it does this.

This reader is blazingly fast. I have used my USB connection with the camera for ages, and when I got the 5D MkII, I knew the files were going to get larger, and that speed would really count. This reader is now an essential part of my workflow.

While I have yet to break or damage the reader, I am perplexed by its cheap build quality. The main ExpressCard bus of the reader is a sturdy metal construction, however the actual reader component is a flimsy plastic build. Every time I handle it I'm afraid it will snap, so that on shoots, I transport it in the box it came with. This isn't a huge thing given that it performs well, and it's about a third of the price of a firewire 800 CF reader, but it still troubles me in everyday use.

So long as you take good care of your equipment, you shouldn't ever have to worry about this somewhat minor gripe. Otherwise, I full recommend this reader.