Does Anyone Have A Solution To The Problem?

The first time we were really aware of this dilemma was at Comdex 2001 when we were taking pictures with two different cameras for use in our Comdex daily reports. Camera one used Compact Flash, and camera two was using Smart Media. We only had one reader with us, and it just so happened that the reader that we had was only for Compact Flash. To make matters worse, this was a reader that required use of USB enabled Compact Flash cards, which was not a good situation at all. After dealing with this quandry, we starting looking for some solutions to the problem, and have found two that we have no problem in recommending to you.

The Imation FlashGO! takes a different approach to provide a solution to the problem. This small, portable USB flash card reader uses the innovative concept of providing sleeves that allow the user to adapt a variety of flash cards into this USB bus powered reader/writer.

When you are on the road, of course, weight and portability are key factors. Imation is not a source that we would normally think of for a solution to our problem, but they sent us the Imation FlashGo! to evaluate, and evaluate it we did. The FlashGo! is a multi-format, portable, USB bus powered flash card reader that can ease the problem of handling multiple format flash cards.

The native FlashGO! uses the innovative concept of different "sleeves" that allow the user to insert the flash media of choice into the "sleeve," which adapts it to the native compact flash reader that is housed in the FlashGO! unit. This provides the ability to use the FlashGO! to read the following fomats: Compact Flash Type I & II, SmartMedia, Multimedia Memory Card, Secure Digital Media, Memory Stick, and IBM's Microdrive.

The FlashGO! weighs in at only a couple of ounces, and includes a cable to connect it to the USB port if you don't just want to plug it directly into the USB port on the computer.