Kingston 19-in-1 USB 2.0 Flash Memory Card Reader FCR-HS219/1
by Kingston Technology
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List Price: Our Price: $10.99 You Save: $20.00 (65%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Kingston 19-in-1 USB 2.0 Flash Memory Card Reader FCR-HS219/1
Customer Review: Best Card Reader I Ever Had!
Summary: 5 Stars
Are you looking for a new memory card reader? Not sure which one to get? I highly recommend the Kingston 19 in 1 (FCR-HS219/1) card reader. I recently had a Transcend card reader that died, though I loved that card reader, it died on me for some reason. I wanted to get that card reader again, but they didn't make it anymore, But I am glad this happened because I now have the Kingston card reader that was much better than the Transcend one. One thing that I like is the is the USB cable built into the card reader, mainly for portable usage, like use on a laptop. But it also comes with a USB extension cable.
I find this card reader to be actually much more faster than my older USB 2.0, even though it's still USB 2.0, I have noticed a big difference in speed when taking data off from it, much less time. I personally got this card reader because a slot for MicroSD and MMC Micro cards. Not many have separate slots just for these memory cards and those cards are very small and it hard to get them in.
It supports many cards, like SD, SDHC, Compact Flash, MicroSD, Memory Stick Duo/Pro, M2, MMC Micro. Of course, those are just the most popular ones. Remember it is a 19 in one card reader, so it will read up to 19 different memory card types. It also features a little slider on top, you just push the Kingston logo button down and then you either move it forward or backwards and what this does is protect the card input slots. Handy if you are traveling, but other than that I keep the slots in view all the time, because I use it so much. The other thing I can say, when you put a card in a slot, the little Kingston logo button glows read when it card is inserted and when accessed it blinks.
Customer Review: Pretty fast, with a nice combination of supported cards. Some annoyances.
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this to transfer photos from a 16G San Disk Extreme Compact Flash 60M/s UDMA card while I'm traveling. This way I can get the photos off the card and on to a laptop for viewing. My old card reader was very slow. I also have a Sony point and shoot that uses memory stick pro duo. My family's cell phones use micro-SD. It's nice that this card reader also supports micro-SD without an adapter. I'm constantly losing the micro-SD to SD adapters. This card reader supports all of those cards. The price is great.
The data transfer rate from the CF card is quite good; about 23MiB/sec. I have not yet tried it with other cards.
On the negative side this card reader has a strange enclosure. Whoever designed this must have failed or cheated their industrial design classes. The short version is that the enclosure makes it frustrating to have access to the cards and have it connected to a computer at the same time. The poor enclosure design also makes the whole thing about 1/3 larger than it needs to be.
It's hard to describe the shape of the enclosure, but I will try. The reader itself slides towards the back or the front of it's enclosure. There is a very short USB cable coming out the back. This is great when the reader is slid towards the back of the enclosure because I wanted this for traveling, so everything is small. But then the reader ports are hidden at the front of the enclosure making it hard to put the card in and out. So you could slide the reader ports towards the front of the enclosure. But this moves the very short USB cable towards the inside of the enclosure. This makes it hard to turn the reader ports towards you to put the card in side.
Customer Review: Great reader for the price
Summary: 5 Stars
People should realize if a type of card isn't on the specs sheet (such as XD and Smart Media) there's a pretty darn good chance it won't be on the reader itself... Sorry, it just frustrates me when the score of such a nice card reader's brought down by such reviews.
Anyway, great card reader. I've seen reviews claiming it's one of the fastest card readers some sites have tested, and I don't doubt it. Copied a 700MB XviD file to a SDHC Class 6 card in under two minutes. The file then opens quickly and is responds quickly to clicks on the timeline. Of course the speed will only be as fast as the card being used, but these times are fine for me.
Supported formats also suite me just fine. Again, if you need XD or SmartMedia, GET ANOTHER READER! Besides that, about any Compact Flash, SD, MMC, or Memory Stick will be supported. Even miniSD, microSD, MMCmicro and M2. You may also use multiple cards at once. I currently have an SD and microSD card inserted and both are accessable. But realize you'll always have four drives visible in My Computer.
About my only complaint with this device is the sliding mechanism. What is it for? The SD card sits flush with the edge of the case when slid in, so perhaps it's to keep cards inserted while traveling? Regardless, I find it more of an annoyance to use, plus it causes the face to give a bit as you try to insert cards. While this isn't a fatal flaw, I would prefer to have the device without this siding crap. Regardless, I don't think it's worth droping the points any, so full 5-stars.
Customer Review: Wide variety of formats, should not wear out
Summary: 4 Stars
This memory card reader provides great functionality for its price. I purchased the reader to read CompactFlash cards after my previous Sandisk reader stopped working. It handles both types of CompactFlash, but also most of the other common formats. I also found it useful that this reader has a dedicated slot for microSD cards. Nearly all smartphones with expandable memory use microSD, so if you want to transfer music, movies, apps, or other media to your smartphone, you can do so much more quickly than by connecting your phone with other means.
My previous Sandisk memory card reader had a stand that it connected to, with a mini-USB connection on the stand and the reader itself. Eventually, this connection wore out, and the reader's connection would fluctuate back and forth. This is NOT a good thing for memory cards, and I'm glad I didn't lose any photos while trying to transfer this way. This Kingston reader I replaced it with has a USB cable connected to the device itself, so it should not develop the Sandisk reader's problem.
The reader has an excellent transfer rate and is likely much faster than hooking your camera up directly to your computer, especially if your camera is older than a couple years. Even if your camera support USB 2.0, it may not have a transfer rate as fast as your memory cards support, so it may still be worth your while to use a memory card reader.
For the price, I don't think you could ask for much more!
Customer Review: Very fast, useful and works with Windows 7
Summary: 5 Stars
This product works very well. I bought this Kingston memory card reader because my previous one does not work on my new Windows 7 computers. I read a review that Windows 7 may be a problem for this reader and I was very relieved that was not the case. Maybe Kingston upgraded the reader, but mine is compatible with, and was easily recognized in Win 7 and it includes Windows 7 on the list of compatible systems on the packaging. It is convenient and seems to be faster than my previous reader. It takes multiple cards and so far, takes the cards I have tried with it. The two-part USB cord may seem odd at first but makes sense when you think about it. It allows you to connect to a computer where a long cord is not necessary or useful (e.g. on an airplane), but has an extension for most other uses. The light indicator is also nice. Since I did not read the manual, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that when I pressed the light button, I can have the protective sleeve for the cards in the reader or I can pull it out to have easy access to the slots. Neat. Overall, I am quite satisfied with the purchase. My one hope is that we will see more USB 3.0 readers soon. Since I own a computer with USB 3.0, I cannot get the advantage of the speed increase with this reader or any other similar card reader that I have seen so far. I guess that will change soon. In the meantime, I highly recommend this reader.