Digital Photography Now Peripheral Reviews

OmniFlash Uno Mas universal card reader

6th March - 2002
By Ian Burley

If you’re concerned about which memory card standard you might be using in the future, why not get a memory card reader that covers all the bases? The OmniFlash Uno Mas is just such a device.

It physically has four slots which take five different memory card types: Compact Flash (CF), Secured Digital (SD), MultiMedia Card (MMC), Sony Memory Stick (MS) and SmartMedia (SM). The two card types that share the same slot are SD and MMC. What’s more, you can insert two cards at the same time and copy between the two.

Not USB 2.0!

One confusion which the manufacturers in Taiwan are guilty of creating is the matter of USB 2.0 compatibility. The documentation and packaging liberally refer to USB 2.0 compatibility.

Most PCs currently only offer USB 1.1 ports. These have a maximum theoretical transfer rate of 12 megabits per second, or about 1.5 megabytes per second. In reality, the typical transfer rate depends on the card, its memory controller and whether or not the USB connection is shared over a hub and you should really only expect around 1MB per second tops. USB 2.0 is theoretically 40 times faster at 480 megabits per second.

So we expected the Uno Mas to fly when connected to a USB 2.0 interface card. It didn’t. Instead, it behaved exactly like we would expect a USB 1.1 card reader. That shouldn’t be surprising as that’s what it is. For some mysterious reason, the manufacturers references to USB 2.0 compatibility relate entirely to the fact that it will work on a USB 2.0 connection, though at the slower USB 1.1 speed.

USB 1.1 devices are USB 2.0 compatible

This is very misleading and completely unnecessary as practically all USB 1.1 devices should work with USB 2.0 ports – backwards compatibility was designed in to USB 2.0 from the start. The moral of the story is – don’t just rely on ‘compatible’ claims when looking for USB 2.0 devices; look for performance claims too.

Apart from the USB 2.0 red herring, the Uno Mas is a really excellent product. It’s well made, the support software CD was easy to install and it worked with Windows XP. The reader is compatible with both CFI and thicker CFI I cards, including IBM microdrives.

An external power socket can be found at the back of the reader, though a power supply is not included. All the slots have their own red LEDs and these flicker when data is being transferred. Only the CF slot has a card extraction button, but the others don’t really need one anyway.

One really nice touch is the labelling of the individual card drives visible in Windows Explorer file management windows. There is no guessing which drive letter is which slot.

Overall, we can happily recommend the Uno Mas as a good value, versatile, universal memory card reader.

Good points:
  • Neat design
  • Well made
  • Easy to install
  • Card drive labelling in Windows Explorer
  • Copying between cards possible
Bad points:
  • Silly references to USB 2.0 ‘compatibility’
Price: £69.99 inc.VAT

For your nearest supplier, contact distributor Peak Developments, www.peak-uk.com

 

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