Introduction and Toughts
Since the early 90s you may have found a cooler made by Spire in your computers. Spire is known of its cheap CPU coolers which are mainly used in low-end and home user computers. On the other hand, Spire has been well known of its USB Hard disk enclosures. This time, we will have a look of Spires new 3.5″ Internal Card Reader.
About Spire
Founded in 1991, Spire is a leading premier brand for computer thermal solutions, power supplies and pc cases. In order to meet the needs and demands of the global market, we have established our production facilities in China and corporate office located in the USA. Our overseas branches are located in The Netherlands, The U.K, Germany, France, Taiwan, Japan and Brazil. All locations are located strategically to better work with the customers we serve.
Spire ideals, to which our employees give full recognition, are (1) constantly striving to become stronger, (2) being sincere and active and (3) seeking the latest innovative technology. After years of hard work and dedication in running its business, Spire today is a major presence in three major business fields: computer thermal solutions, power supplies and pc cases. It has received full recognition in its products as well as its services. The purpose built Spire factory and all of the products were approved by CE, UR, CSA, and TUV in 1998. We gained AMD and VIA approvals along with recognition by International Standard Commission for Quality Assurance in 1999 against ISO-9002 & ISO-9001. Spire is also proud of shipping all its products compliant to the standards of The European Union ROHS and WEEE.
More information availabe at www.spirecoolers.com
Specifications/Features
Data transfer 1.5/12/480 Mbit/sec
Dimensions 101.8*96.8*25.4mm
Housing Plastic
Interface Motherboard 9pin / USB1.0 and 2.0
OS support Win 98/2000/ME/XP/Vista, Mac OS 8.6/8.8/OSX
Support memory cards Compact Flash type I/II,MS,SD,MMC,XD,SM etc.
Warranty 2 Year Limited Warranty
Weight 141g
Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures
On the front side of the package there is a picture of SP332CB. Though there is not much information labeled on the front, you are told everything that you need to know. The weird thing is that model name SP332CB is not labeled in the package, but there is a small stamp on the upper-right corner of the package. On the backside on the other hand you get more specific information about the device. There is also some advertisement of other Spire products.
Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures
Inside the package you can find the usual stuff. Packaged are only the device itself, driver-cd, couple of screws, and a manual. Otherwise I’d be satisfied for these, but the manual is just one small paper. I’d like to see a proper manual with good installing instructions. Though for 9,50USD you can’t expect to get everything.
Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures
The device itself has six slots for different kind of memory modules. Supported are MS, SD/MMC, CF/MD, XD, T-F and USB -modules, for example. On back side of the device there’s nothing interesting, just one cable to be attached on motherboards USB-pin header.
Testing the Spire SP332CB 3.5″ Card Reader
We decided not to do any actual test results on SP332CB, since the results would vary so much on using different memory cards.
However we did compare SP332CB against Panasonic DMC-FX9 digital camera. Putting the memory card in SP332CB and transferring files from there was a quarter faster than transferring pictures directly from the camera.
Despite the test results SP332CB has other pros too. You can easily copy files from one memorycard to another, which is quite impossible without a card reader. However you should keep in mind that if you want to copy files for example from SD to SD, you have to copy those on your computer first. On the other hand you can do backups from your digital cameras memorycard to another same kind of memorycard easily.
Conclusion:
Being priced around 10USD, SP332CB is a great value for money. It’s easy to install for a 3.5″ slot and has a nice performance boost versus digital cameras internal card reader. With only one con, the lack of a good manual; I could recommend this product to everyone who is in need of a card reader.
Pros:
+ Great value for 10USD
+ Will suit for almost every memory card
Cons:
- Lousy manual
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