Customer Reviews

PNY P-CFSM-USB-PB Dual Card Reader

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

 

 

This reader seemed to install quickly and without problems, but as soon as I inserted a card and tried to read it, it completely crashed my system. I tried uninstalling and then reinstalling, with the same result. Forget it, I'm going to get a Viking.

The reader works greatly for smartmedia cards, only make sure to insert the card correctly. I haven't tried with other kind of cards, but the only drawback is that it could have a better eject mechanism for smartmedia cards. It has a green light that blinks when the card is been read, but it's on the top of the unit, so it isn't much visible. BTW, it is pretty fast and the installation was very easy on Win98 and WinMe. Haven't tried on WinXP or Win2000.

There are two things to be aware when you use the reader with the IBM microwdrive (either 340MB or 1 GB versions): 1. Inserting the drive in the slot to its mechanical stop causes the green light to go off, and the drive to be disconnected from the USB. I insert drive about half way in, watching the light. 2. The reader has no read light, so I don't know when it is finished its read/write process, and safe to remove the drive.

Good things: it's fast, and reliable with the above exceptions.

Doesn't work with Windows XP. This is ridiculous. There are plenty of companies out there that have upgraded their drivers for Win XP. There has been plenty of time. However, although their website (which isn't working right now) claims a 3-6 month timeframe of getting XP drivers ready from July 2001. They still are not ready.

Poor support. If you buy this, beware. It is obvious that they either don't care about their customers, or they do not have the development staff to properly support their own product.

My reader worked fine until upgrading to XP. The W2K driver
hasn't been blessed by Microsoft and you're told so when
trying to install the driver. I went ahead and installed the
driver anyway and the device worked for a few minutes before XP
blue-screened.

I checked the PNY site and supposedly this device is suppose to
work with XP.

This is an excellent value, reading both flash media and smart media. No more cables and power adapter for uploading digital camera data and your pictures are instantly available with no upload time.

This device is compact and self-powered and useful even as an additional drive for your computer. It's especially useful for transporting large files from one computer to another if no zip drive is available. You can throw this tiny thing right in a briefcase or pocketbook and the driver takes less than 10 seconds to install. The weight is negligible and certainly less than lugging a zip drive and power adapter around if you need file portability.

This worked ok with Win 2000 but when I switched over to XP it would not work at all... it might as well get tossed in the trash.

I bought this a couple of years ago and it worked well. Then I upgraded to OSX. There is no excuse not to make drivers available for those using the latest operating systems - Mac OSX, Windows XP. Obviously this company does not care if it's hardware becomes obsolete within a year of its purchase.

I bought the PNY unit to transfer pictures between my PC and compact flash cards. It saves my camera batteries and makes managing CF cards a breeze. I'm running Win2K pro and haven't experienced any serious setup or usage problems. The transfer speed is acceptable. I have not tried a smart media card yet. The CF reader shows up in explorer as a removable media device; my imaging software also finds it with no problems. The unit only has a power indicator and there is no visible way to tell when the reads & writes are finished. Also, while the USB driver works fine on my PC, the user interface for ejecting cards is clunky. Though I'm not unhappy with the PNY card reader, I'm not overjoyed. I would very much like a status light and a better eject method on my next card reader.

I purchased this Dual Card Reader 6 months ago and it's quickly proven to be a "non-reader." After the first 2-3 uses, this reader stopped reading my SmartMedia Cards. Actually, it generated messages that my cards needed to be reformatted. This happened with 2 separate cards from separate manufacturers. Thankfully, the cards still retained their images and I'm able to use them and view images via the camera's PC connection.
Support or user-guides from PNY are virtually non-existent. Spend your money on a reliable product from another manufacturer.