Customer Reviews

Viking IntelliFlash 6-in-1 USB Flash Memory Reader

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I have Win98SE and it installed w/o any issues at all and works fine with my CF, SM and MS (Memory Stick) cards. Boring huh? But unlike other USB products I've had, no problems at all is the exception, not the rule!

I really like that it creates "drives" for each memory card type, so that you can copy from CF to Memory stick directly, for example. One thing that messes people up about installing a USB device is... Software First! That means install the software first, then reboot and THEN connect your new USB device.

Perhaps you only have one memory type right now? Well, sooner or later you will want to access more than one. (Maybe your friend has pics on another type?) For 2x the price of a single format reader you can get all the popular formats in one device!

Maybe you just bought a new digial camera and are saying "I don't need a reader at all, I can download direct from my camera." Well, that's OK, but it helps to waste battery life on your camera and the "free" software they give you tends to be of low quality too. I've had friends PCs go unstable after loading this type of software. This is not going to happen frequently perhaps, but why add software if you don't have to? Especially if that free software is limited in someway unless you buy the "full" version? Lots of free/low cost JPEG picture format software out there...

This is a great all-in-one product. Setup was totally painless - plug-and-play as it was intended with WinXP. I didn't even need to use the driver CD that accompanied the reader.

I've used this reader with both CompactFlash from my digital camera and memory sticks from my camcorder. Both of them worked flawlessly.

Each of the slots in the reader are treated like separate removable drives when I manage files on my computer. It's a little annoying that all of these drives aren't labeled beyond "Removable drive", but once you get the hang of the order, this isn't a concern anymore.

I highly recommend this reader to anyone who uses a variety of digital devices.

PROS
* Ease of setup
* Performance (SPEED!)
* Flexibility / variety of formats

CONS
* Lack of labels when browsing PC drives
* Ergonomics (it's kinda ugly and it's flat, i.e. it has no angle up toward the user, so you've got to keep it on the edge of your desk to use it one-handed)

i bought this unit because i currently own devices that use 3 different removable memory media and i didn't want a separate reader for each. even if you can hook a device directly to a pc, it's usually faster and easier to read and write to the memory cards through a device such as this.

on a pc running Win2k Pro, i just plugged it into a free USB port and it recognized 4 removable disks- no additional drivers required.

This is so worth the $$'s you'll spend. Now I can just pop the flash memory from my camera and pop it right in the IntelliFlash which sits nice and tidy on my desk (I happily got to remove another random cable floating around in my office). I have been able to download pictures in half the time. It has multiple slots for compact flash memory, memory sticks, smart media cards, MMC and SD cards. Installation was a breeze. I use Windows XP so all I had to do was plug it in and re-boot my system. It took about 5 minutes MAX...no drivers to load !! Definitely a good buy !!

I've read that people have had problems with this reader. I'm running Win2000 Pro. and all I had to do was plug in the USB port and then load the software. This all took a couple of mins. Then click on "My Computer" icon on the desktop, and you have 4 drive letters, One for each type of media. Just plug in your media into the given slot and away you go.

This attractive flash card reader is a little larger than a man's wallet and includes about 3' of USB cord. Installation was simply "plug it in"! Mac OS-X 10.2.2 detected it without having to load any drivers (drivers for other OS's are included on a CD). After connecting, I inserted an 8mb MMC flash card and it downloaded the pictures into iPhoto flawlessly and quickly. I have not tried writing to the flash card from my computer.

If you plan to use only one type of memory card, you may want to consider a less flexible (but smaller) reader. This won't save you much money, just desk space.

I like the ability to read multiple formats since we already have three varieties of flash cards in the family. As a result, this reader fits the job neatly.

What can I say about the IntelliFlash, except that I love it! Great to have a device that is 6 in 1 and USB to take with me when needed. I was able to test out all slots but the MemoryStick, has I have no MemorySticks. I have WinXP, just plugged it in and it found all the drives. The only disappointment I found, but it's not a big deal is the fact that if you look at the documentation, it shows you with Win98/NT you use the CD to load up the drivers and it places NICE little icons for you with each drive letter that shows what each one is MMC,SD,CF,MS,SM, is on your drive letters. If I could only get those same icons to show up for WinXP. You would think with MS (MicroSoft)'s brilliants, they would not only reconize these drives types, but also place corronsponding icons for each drive letter. I have sent Viking an email asking how I can do this, but still as of yet waiting for a response! But, overall I am happy with the product and the great price I paid for it. Well if I get my rebate that is!

This is a piece of junk.

The first time I inserted a smart media card, the card went all the way into the unit. To get it out, I had to call customer support who told me how to disassemble the unit so that I could extract it. Great start!

It does not consistently read CF cards.

Bottom line-stay away.

My WindowsXP system immediately detected the USB reader, and created drives for each of the slots. Quite handy when you want to read and write to each type of flash memory. There are 2 downsides though, it doesn't have built-in memory and it's too big. The PQI 7-in-1 reader I have has built-in 128MB storage and it's just the size of a credit card. I prefer that.

This was a great product when USB1.1 was the only game in town. Now, USB 2.0 is out (much faster!!) and common on most new (<1 year old) PCs. Should be able to get a similar product (Dazzle for example) that provides both USB 2.0 & 1.1 speeds for <$40 regular, $20-ish on sale.