Belkin iPod Media Reader user reviews

Pros Simple and easy set up.

Cons Way too Slow! Takes 45min to download less than 1GB of information. Pro photographers stay away! Inexpensive answer for shutterbugs.

Pros Sounds good, and it seems to work well enough, but....

Cons Way to slow, the box say's fast firewire technology, no way this thing putts. Plus it sucks up your iPod battery. It took like 25 some minutes to copy 475 mb from a fast CF card, and it took over e quater of my iPod juice.

Pros Fantastic idea of using the iPod to store your digital photos. Also great for syncing with iPhoto to grab the photos off the iPod. Just supurb.

Cons Doesn't do MSPro which makes no sense to me since that's the format Sony is changing to. I have a 256MB card for my camera and I can't use this device because of their refusal to implement MSPro. I even emailed Belkin and they said MSPro is not in their p

Pros VERY easy to use, 'last resort' storage device, iPOD instantly recognises device

Cons Takes FAR too long to transfer data, eats up iPOD battery power

Summary Okay, I'm a pro photographer, so I usually transfer directly to my PowerBook, but I was just on 3 weeks of Safari and mountain climbing where there was no electricity, and I didn't want to bring an expensive laptop around with me. I unfortunately only bought this device when I got back so that I would have it for next time, and by the way, I bought it for only £7.98 from a shop on Ebay (including delivery!)

What it does well is connect quickly and easily.

What it does not do is transfer 'quickly'. I'm not sure what Belkin's definition of fast transfer is, but I can tell you it took me about one hour to transfer a full standard 1GB CompactFlash card to my 60GB iPOD Photo, and it ate up approximately half of the battery on the iPOD. So if I have taken it on Safari with me, I would have been able to move 2GBs worth of photos before having to recharge the iPOD.

So if you get this device, and you're on the move, make sure you take an iPOD in car charger with you so that you can charge the iPOD in between transfers.

So for me, as a pro photographer, it's a useful last resort gadget for freeing up my memory cards, but it does not do it quickly, and if you have a memory card larger than 2GBs, you'll run out of power on the iPOD before the transfer is complete.

I haven't found an alternative yet, but at the price I paid for it, it's good enough to tide me over.