Pros: Fast and reliable, portable
Cons: None
The bottom line: It looks nice, very reliable
I purchased the SanDisk ImageMate flash card reader back in 2005 when my computer had trouble recognizing my brand new Canon 20D digital camera. I had just taken some photos and was looking for the instant gratification of seeing them on the big screen. Instead, I found myself troubleshooting software! After half an hour, I went out to Circuit City and bought this reader. It works so well, I never bothered to find out why the computer could not locate the camera.

Features I enjoy about this card reader is that it is fast, it always recognizes my flash cards (also from SanDisk), and it’s very light. Whenever I travel, I take the reader with me as it’s easy to plug it in to the laptop and transfer all my photos. Additionally, I’ve never bothered to “turn off” the reader before pulling the cards out. I just make sure my laptop is not working on the card and pull it out.

Common convention states you are supposed to “stop” any drive via USB to avoid loosing files or corrupt the files. However, I always format the card once I put it back on the camera, so I never had any issues in the 2 plus years I have used the reader.

One additional feature I like is that a green light on top comes ‘on’ when I insert a card. This lets me know the computer recognized the card and it’s ready to go.

Note that the Image Mate is USB 2.0 compatible, thus it makes full use of the fastest flash cards’ quick reading and writing abilities. I have taken over 9,000 photos on my Canon and the reader always worked well.

Amazon sells them for $15 now-a-days. It’s a good buy!