Customer Reviews

Lexar Media USB Universal Digital Film Reader (RW007001)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I bought this product because my Boss has a Canon Power Shot A50, and I bought for my wife a Fuji Fine pix 1400. The serial connection for digital cameras are very slow and consume batteries.

I wanted a USB digital film reader and this one worked perfect out of the box. I plug it in the USB port (it comes with it's own USB cable)and ran the setup program on the Product's CD and after 2 reboots, one for the USB device on the mother board and one for the Lexar digital film reader it work fine. It shows up in Explorer as a removable Disk (F:) and Removable Disk (G:). The device has two slots for different type of digital film. The top slot has a PC Card Adapter which I use for the Canon Digital Film. The bottom slot I use for Smart media film for the Fuji Camera.

Just click and drag the images off the digital film as if it was another drive on the computer. Could not be any easier.

This reader was easy to set up and worked GREAT with my 32MB Smart Media card. I recently bought a 128MB Smart Media card and my computer (800 MHz P3 with Windows 98SE) crashes every time I try to read this card. I called Lexar tech support, and they said it only works up to 32MB Smart Media cards. I downloaded the updated driver from the website, and now it works intermittently. Typically, it crashes my computer, I hard reboot, it may or may not crash a second time, then it reads the card. So eventually it works, and I have never lost any picture files, but I am going to buy a dedicated Smart Media reader to avoid these problems.

I have been using this product on my PC with Windows ME for the last year and it works great. It is extremely easy to use and install, even for those of us who are technically challanged. The pictures download quickly and it is simple simple simple.
However, since I got a new computer with Windows XP, I now cannot get the driver to install. Lexar support says they are working on an updated driver download but it is not available yet. There is some kind of workaround that Lexar is supposed to be sending me, but I havn't received it yet and it sounds kind of involved. I can't wait to start using it again.

I originally bought mine after I have lost the USB cable for my Canon s20 camera (about a year ago). It was a very pleasent surprise to find out that it not only does the job (of copying images from the camera to the hard disk), it also makes copying (a.k.a "capturing") the digital images from the camera to the PC a lot more convenient and quicker than it used to be with the original camera USB cable and software. With Canon's software you are bound to use image processing driver (it could have been a TWAIN driver - I am not sure by now), and, at least I, was unable to do batch copy of the whole 32MB of my CF card into the PC.

The Lexar media driver maps the digital film reader to a regular disk drive, then, all you have to do is, open two windows explorer windows, select the image files on the CF card (after removing the card from the camera and loading it into the reader, of course), drag them into the destination folder on your hard drive, and, voila ! you're done - now you can safely return the CF card into the camera.

Copying 32MB worth of digital images from CF to the hard drive takes about 20 seconds ...

Even though I got a new USB cable for the camera by now - I have not found myself using it anymore. [What I paid] was worth every cent.

(-) Gripe: when I bought the unit, the software driver was not included in the box. although it did not take too long to find and download one, I still think Lexar media should have gone the extra $1 and include a CD in the box.

Following the purchase of a digital camera I went and picked up this sorry excuse of a card reader for my Macintosh Computer (an upgraded Beige G3 using system 9.x). While it did display the first few test shots on the camera with a 64mb Compact Flash card, it would not see any further than #83 (out of 106 shots!) and proclaimed the card was damaged. It wasn't- I had to get the pictures off via the camera's port. Combined with the PCMIA card you have to stick the Compact Flash Card into for it to read the pictures off of, it is a poorly executed design for such a pricey gadget.

Needless to say I returned it promptly.

If you are a new Mac user, go and get the VST Tri-Media reader- it works fine and gets you a floppy disk drive in the deal.

I purchased this reader in hopes of reading my CompactFlash cards. I installed it and was able to read the card, however my computer would not restart. "kebugcheckex...System Halted" is not a good thing. After using Lexar's live support system I decided to download a new driver. Unfortunately the system was halted again. Another round with their unknowledgeable live support didn't solve the problem. Their solution is always the driver. However, when the driver is at fault, there's really not much you can do except return the item.

I purchased a SanDisk ImageMate and love it. No problems, no lockups, and no conflicts. It works flawlessly.

Recently, I Purchased a Lexar Digital Film Reader Model # GS-UFD-20SA-TP........ RW007-001. I had a conversation with Lexar Technical Support about my readers inability to read Smart Media Digital Film Cards and Crash my PC. This conversation resulted in the following E-mail from him to me.
This solution did not work -- even after trying muliple times and returning the Digital Film Reader for another one and trying again. Since then I have replyed with two e-mail asking for help -- see below. There has not been a reply for 3 weeks.

I bought one of these several years ago and still have it. I have found with most device of this time, that if the drivers are installed correctly and there are no conflicts they work great. I have in the last year switch my camera's to USB 2.0 and download directly from the cameras and it is fast. But in it's time, this was a good reader.

I bought this product one year ago and it didn`t bring any Windows xp drivers. I couldn`t find it on the lexar website so I contacted their support service wich promptly sent me the link for download. After downloading and installing the new drivers it worked fine ever since in 4 different machines with Cf of 16 and 64mb and a 16mb smartmedia.

1. For several years I struggled with digital film memory card transfers from my Kodak DC-265 digital camera to my Kodak software program, Picture Easy 3.1.
2. Primary problems:
a) Transfer times excessive, ie., 10 - 15 minutes.
b) Image transfers often excluded varying numbers of images.
3. Upon receipt of a Lexar Media USB DFR from a relative,
problems experienced above vanished, ie., transfers were
completed in a matter of seconds with no exclusions or aborts.
4. Since I have two residences in California, it seemed prudent to have a card reader at each.

Ward Bush