Customer Reviews

Sandisk MicroMate Reader - for SD and SDHC memory cards

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I mostly bought the SanDisk MicroMate to use on the road with other people's computers. When I did use it with my Mac at home, it locked up my entire system and forced manual reboot. Didn't matter what type of card, how many gigs, etc. I read online that a lot of other Mac users are experiencing the same problem. I called SanDisk and here's what I found out ...

According to SanDisk, Mac users must insert the card into the reader BEFORE inserting the reader into the computer. That makes sense now that I think about it ... I was inserting the reader first into the computer, then inserting the card.

So, this is a fine product! Don't let internet reviews detailing mac crashing problems scare you away from buying. Try putting card into reader, then into computer, and you should be fine. Worked for me!

My new A-DATA 8GB SDHC card works fine in my Canon SD800 camera, but wouldn't show up on my Mac desktop after I plugged it into my Sandisk MobileMate card reader. Enter the Sandisk MICROMATE, which turns out to have been designed to handle the newer, higher-capacity SDHC cards, as well as earlier generations of SD cards. The MicroMate is an efficient conduit between my A-DATA, Lexar, and Kingston cards on the one hand, and my Macs on the other. No drivers are needed -- it's all plug & play. The device has a little green light that powers on when the reader is inserted into a USB port. It comes with a transparent plastic cap that protects the USB plug; when you remove the cap to plug the MicroMate into your computer, the cap fits on and over the slot on the rear of the MicroMate (and over an SD card that you might have inserted there), so that you don't lose it. On a critical note, the cap also has an opening in its corner that lets you hook it onto a keychain -- an asinine design because if the reader detaches from the cap, you'll still have the cap but stand a good chance of losing the device itself. Other than that (and the caveat that this thing looks like it shouldn't cost more than ten or twelve bucks), the MicroMate is a nicely functional, able performer.

Works great with SDHC cards... but if your USB port is recessed, you may not be able to plug it in all the way. And if you have side-by-side ports, you'll probably cover up the ports next to the one you're plugged in to. I wish it came with a little 3-inch USB extender!

Works well on both my Mac OS X and Windows XP configurations, giving the ability to read/write SDHC and SD media. In a nice design detail, the clear cap over the USB connector also fits over the SD card slot while its in use.

Note however that the reader is wide, and doesn't come with a cable extender (minus 1 star on my rating). If your USB ports are side-by-side horizontally, you may have a tough time plugging this in without an extension cable or removing items from neighboring ports. For this price, the cable should be included.

One mystery - there is a hole in the cap to attach a neck strap, but how many times to you need an SD reader so close at hand? And, you could lose the reader but the cap would remain attached.

Overall I'd recommend highly - it's compact, fast, well designed, although a cable extender would make it perfect.

Using the Micro Mate in a USB 2.0 port, it took One Hour and 56 minutes to write 3.13 GB.

This was on a computer running at 3.2 Gig Hz.

By contrast, using the built-in card reader, it took 27 minutes to write the same file to the same SDHC card.

USB 2.0 can't be blamed because I wrote the same 3.13 GB to a portable 2.5" hard drive (generic) using the same USB 2.0 port in just under 8 minutes.

Micro mate is slow.

This card reader performs very well and is a great choice for reading SD and SDHC media. I have had no problems with the device in terms of functionality, though I do have some minor complaints about the design.

As other reviewers mention, the reader is wide and might block adjacent USB ports on your system.

It comes with a cap to protect the USB plug, which also has a keyring loop. However, this design is nonsensical because the cap is very easily detachable from the device; you could have the cap securely attached to your keychain and still lose the card reader! I would have personally preferred some kind of hook or clip on the back of the reader so it can be more easily attached to a pocket or bag. Even placing the keyring loop on the device instead of the cap would have been an improvement.

While the reader itself works perfectly for me, the design does not seem to have been well thought out. In spite of that, I do recommend the product, though I'm continually worried I'm going to misplace it somewhere!

The MicroMate is a required purchase for people with SDHC cards & digital cameras who need to get off large numbers of photos.

Digital cameras using SDHC do not seem capable of accessing SDHC cards with large numbers of pictures so you need a stand alone SDHC reader. Sandisk's MicroMate is one of the few SDHC readers available during late 2006 / early 2007. It's also low cost at ~20 $.

Once multi-card readers support SDHC the MicroMate is not as useful, and goes to 3 stars.

This is an average memory card reader. The low price is appealing. You will need a USB extension for most PC's. The square shape didn't work well with by Dell front case.

I use this reader with a Transcend 4GB SDHC Class 6 card. The camera is a Leica D-Lux 3. Downloads are a lot faster with the MicroMate then the camera. It is the only SDHC reader I have used. Are there any others yet? It will not fit in recessed USB ports. You need a USB extension cable for those.

The reader works as designed. However, the reader doesn't fit into some front panel USB ports without a USB extender because it's so wide. It fits on my Dell PC but not my Toshiba laptop when it's on my desk. I'd have to lift up my laptop to push it in and it would be supporting the laptop on a tilt. Not a good idea.

The other problem I ran into with the SDHC read/write is that it reads really slow. When transferring photos from my SDHC card to my PC it takes much longer than doing so with a standard SD card. I compared this by transferring the same files from both the SDHC and SD card.