2.0 Visual Inspection

The Hi-Speed USB 12-in-1 is distributed by Crucial with a USB cable, an installation cd and a user manual as well; this is what we got from the producer. Together with the reader kit we also got a 512 Mb CompactFlash Type I and a 128 Mb High-Speed Secure Digital flash memory cards we used for our testing (figure 1).

No doubt on the device's design: it is really winning, the PCB case, with small both dimension and weight, shows itself very ergonomic without damaging its style on the whole. The reader's operative states ("not connected", "connected and waiting" and "connected and transferring") are signalled by a led on the top of the case: the light color changing (no light, green light, red light), shows the peripheral current state; the choice of just a single led is perfectly in line with the goal to slim the device's looking without damaging its functionality (figure 2).

The physical stability is good as well, the reader has 4 anti-slip plates and this makes it very handy especially to the ones who use desktops (figure 3).

The 4 memory card slots are well setted: even though the reader is compact, you can use it with 4 memory cards plugged simultaneously in it (figure 4).

The USB connection cable (figure 5) is good too, though the electrical properties are not balanced by the lenght (about 3.28ft): this one could be inadequate, as you are limited in choosing the device placing on a busy work position. On the performances/length trade-off, Crucial chose to favour the first ones, here electrical conductivity and noise immunity.

In the next page we will give a report on the reader's performances tests.

Introduction

1 2 3 4

Performance Analysis

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