First hands-on look at Delkin's new eFilm ExpressCard 34 Compact Flash memory card adapter
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Delkin has been busy launching eFilm ExpressCard adapters for memory cards recently. Unexpectedly, we picked up one of their new ExpressCard 34 Compact Flash adapters while visiting Delkin at the traditional pre-PMA 'Sneak Peek' event today.
Having just upgraded to a notebook PC that eschews the traditional PCMCIA, or PC Card interface, for an ExpressCard 34 interface, I was keen to see how Delkin's solution would perform.
What is ExpressCard? It's the evolution of the expansion card standard for notebook PCs that, on paper, solves certain limitations of the old PCMCIA system, allowing more compact slots and wider bandwidth (read faster) data transfers. ExpressCard 34 indicates the slot is 34mm wide and is the smaller relation to the 54mm type 54 ExpressCard.
A compact flash card is wider than an ExpressCard 34 slot.
ExpressCard slots are being found on an increasing number of new notebook PCs instead of PCMCIA and, especially, in Apple Mac notebooks popular with photographers. Hardly any notebooks incorporate a compact flash card slot, so the attraction of the Delkin eFilm Express Card CF adapter is obvious, eliminating the need for a bulky external card reader plus a USB or firewire cable.
Being fully plug and play, the Delkin eFilm Express Card CF adapter requires no software drivers for up to date Mac and Windows operating systems. It's important to know that you need to load your CF card into the adapter before inserting the combination in to the ExpressCard slot. If you mount the adapter then the card, the card is not recognised.
Depending on the implementation of your computer's Express Card slot, it may protrude more than you might expect, as in here with our HP Pavilion tx1080ea subnotebook.
There hasn't been any time to run any timings since this article is being written straight after our PMA Sneak Peek meeting with Delkin. But transferring half a gigabyte of images off a 133x card seemed swift enough. However, there is no pretence that this adapter is radically faster than a typical USB 2.0 High Speed or firewire card reader and it doesn't fully exploit the 300x UDMA generation of ultra high speed cards just coming onto the market.
I'd hve liked the adapter to fit flush with the side of my notebook, but my HP Pavilion tx1080ea subnotebook's small dimensions probably explain why this isn't the case. But I can live with that and, overall, the cable-less solution is a welcome simplicity.
You should be able to pick up a Delkin eFilm ExpressCard 34 compact flash card adpater for around $49, retail, in the US.
Would we recommend the Delkin eFilm ExpressCard 34 compact flash card adpater? It certainly seems up to the job!
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