30Jan Transcend USB 3.0 card reader quick overview
I’ve had pretty good luck with the Transcend USB 3.0 card readers and I keep one in each camera bag. I needed another card reader to replace the one that was “borrowed” by a fellow filmmaker on the set of our last shoot (It’ll probably be 6 months before I see it again). When I checked on Amazon, for whatever reason the white Transcend USB 3.0 card readers are about $5 cheaper than the black units. The card reader is identical in specs and performance, it just has a white case instead of a black case.
If you’re still using a USB 2.0 card reader, you might want to consider upgrading. With faster memory cards your read and write speeds will be limited by the connection speed of USB 2.0, while the transfer speeds of USB 3.0 will remove the bottleneck from your read and write operations. Before you make this modest $14 upgrade however, check to make sure that your system actually has some USB 3.0 ports. There is no point in upgrading to a USB 3.0 card reader if all of your USB ports only support 2.0. The Transcend USB 3.0 card reader will still work when plugged into a USB 2.0 port but again you’ll be limited by the port speed as opposed to the card’s actual read and write speeds.
Regardless, for $14 the Transcend USB 3.0 card reader is reasonably priced and it works. It would be nice if the included USB 3.0 cable was a little longer, but for the price, that’s pretty easy to forgive.
