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    PCMCIA or ExpressCard Card Reader?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Beltonius, Mar 12, 2007.

  1. Beltonius

    Beltonius Notebook Consultant

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    So I just got a T60. It's awesome, except that it doesn't have an integrated flash card reader.

    I've done some searching on the internets and they seem to vary widely in price, from ~$20 - $60 and I can't quite fathom why.

    I'm looking for one that'll do xD (for my camera) and SD (for my PDA and other peoples' cameras).

    I'll take either a PCMCIA or ExpressCard (34 or 54), whichever is faster (I'd imagine the ExpressCard would be, if anything).

    Any suggestions? I've had bad luck with randomly picking PCMCIA cards (USB or Firewire) offline before.

    Also, my mom's laptop has a PCMCIA slot and her digital camera takes CF and she'd like a reader for her camera as well. Any other suggestions there?
     
    Beltonius, Mar 12, 2007
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  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Most of the flash memory readers use USB and will work with any computer with a USB port. Is there any reason why you are excluding this option? I recently bought, out of curiousity, a USB 2.0 SD card reader because it cost only £1 (~$1.95). It works fine. You should be able to get a reader which handles 10+ card formats for less than $20.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Mar 12, 2007
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  3. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    The speed of PCMCIA vs. ExpressCard really isn't going to be a big deal...I'm fairly certain that the media cards will operate at slower speeds than either interface. They're the bottleneck.
     
    Greg, Mar 12, 2007
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  4. Mystic Image

    Mystic Image Notebook Consultant

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    The biggest reason to get an ExpressCard / PCMCIA Reader is because you don't have to lug anything around. You just leave the card in the slot and that's it; there's no cables or extra components - it just looks like your laptop came 'stock' with a reader. :)

    That said, compared against PCMCIA, USB readers are often cheaper, and sometimes faster - especially if you're not careful and the PCMCIA reader you buy uses the old 16-bit interface...

    My suggestion for these readers, is to go with Delkin. They typically aren't the cheapest but you're likely to get good performance. They sell a 32-bit CardBus/PCMCIA CompactFlash reader which would be ideal for your mom. There's a few other manufacturers that also sell a similar 32-bit adapter. If you go to Best Buy or some other retail stores you will likely see the cheaper, pass-through 16-bit CF adapters (<$25) that work but are very slow and will even cause your system to lag due to the legacy method that the OS needs to use in reading cards through them.
     
    Mystic Image, Mar 12, 2007
    #4