I have been using the older SanDisk ImageMate 12-in-1 card reader for years, happily reading my Compact Flash, Memory Stick, and SD cards. Then, one day I bought a newer, larger capacity SD card (also SanDisk), and found that the 12-in-1 would not recognize it.
A Google search revealed that the protocol for reading the higher capacity and/or higher speed cards that are now on the market was somehow different from what the 12-in-1 was designed to handle. SanDisk's website allowed that there was a firmware flash upgrade available for the 12-in-1 that would allow it to read memory cards with the newer protocol, but unluckily my particular reader was old enough that there was no flash available for its serial number range.
I bought a nice looking all-in-one reader made by IOGear (their "56-in-1 Memory Card Reader/Writer"), and it worked with the new card, but the transfer was agonizingly slow. It took almost an hour to transfer the 8GB card's contents to my computer. Extrapolating how long the older Sandisk 12-in-1 took to transfer a 2GB card, this was a ridiculously long time. Another Google search revealed that this reader, and some others, were notoriously slow...I should have Googled before I bought!
The same search suggested that the new SanDisk ImageMate All-in-One Reader/Writer was a speed demon, so I ordered one from Amazon (no local stores carried it, interesting enough).
The new SanDisk reader works well. The cards plug in and can be removed easily enough, the reader transfers data at a reasonably fast rate, etc. However, I find that SanDisk really fell down in the ergonomics department with this product. Apparently, the whole design group was stoned out and tripping to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and thereby designing their new card reader to look like the black monolith. Whereas the 12-in-1 had a nice appearance, docking into a stable desk stand, with ample room around the card slots for text and diagrams to show which kind of card goes into which slot, the new All-in-One looks cheap and flimsy (although it actually feels solid), is held onto a tiny desk stand base with a weak magnet so that it falls off too easily, and is so thin that the text and diagrams are illegible.
The older 12-in-1 could be undocked from the desk stand and laid flat on a table, or used as a hand-held device. The same is true for the new All-in-One, except its smaller footprint and slick surface makes it harder to use laid flat on a table, and its shape makes it unpleasant as a hand-held unit.
The older 12-in-1 had a nice array of colored LEDs to indicate that the reader was communicating with the computer over USB and that each slot was busy transferring data. The new All-In-One does not have anything to indicate that it is plugged in and ready, but does have LEDs to show slot activity. However, these are tiny pinpoint blue LEDs that seem to be sunken back into the plastic, and I find them hard to see unless I look closely. And, since they are next to the slots, the card itself may obscure its LED when viewed from some angles (the older reader had the LEDs grouped up on top where they were both attractive and highly visible).
While this reader certainly functional, it serves as a poster child for poor ergonomic design. The designers apparently wanted a slick looking design, but did not think through the functional aspects of the ergonomics.