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Reviews: Memory Card Readers

Getting photos off your digital camera will be six times faster with a good card reader--and you'll save your batteries.

Pierre-Jean Alzieu
Updated: January 19, 2010

Our Tests

We test card readers with all of the memory card formats currently found in digital cameras: Compact Flash (using a 32 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro card); SDHC (using a 16 GB Class 6 SanDisk Extreme II card); Memory Stick Pro Duo (using an 8 GB Sony card) and microSDHC (using a 4 GB Class 4 Samsung card). We measure the time it takes to read and write files. We start with small 100 KB files, move on to a series of 2-5 MB photos and finish with large 256 MB folders.

Factors like the number of compatible formats, the size of the device itself and how how easy it is to sue also contribute to our final score.

Choosing a memory card reader isn't a job for a computer engineer. The first question you need to ask is what formats you'll need. You'll find the answer by investigating which format your digital camera, or your GPS, or your mobile phone uses: SD, miniSD, microSD, CF, xD, MMC or Memory Stick? Some basic card readers don't go beyond SD, miniSD and MMC, so you'll need to see if that's enough for you or if you need to any further. Don't forget that you might upgrade your camera in the future to a model that uses a different memory card format.

Maximum speeds: up from 11 MB/s in SD to 30 MB/s

Once you've decided what formats you'll need, the next question is performance. That's where our tests come into play. We measure the read speeds of different services, and we're glad to say that the average results have improved. The best results have leapt forward, and the result for reading from an SD card has increased from 11 MB/s to almost 30 MB/s today.

At the end of the day, choosing a card reader is a simple enough choice: you need to strike the right balance between price, performance, formats and style.

Finally, we should point out how much of an advantage it is to use a dedicated card reader to copy photos from your camera onto your computer. Connect a Canon G7 to your computer, for instance, and you'll have to wait around six minutes to move 1 GB of photos; a good card reader like Transcend's Multi Card Reader will do the same job in just one minute.

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