SanDisk ImageMate 2009

SanDisk's opening moves for PMA began today with two new high-speed card readers. The ImageMate All-in-One and ImageMate Multi-Card both have a more compact design with a removable tripod that lets them sit upright in tight spaces. They also transfer more quickly than past models: the All-in-One can sustain up to 34MB per second for an Extreme IV CompactFlash card, while the Multi-Card peaks at the maximum 30MB/sec read and 27MB/sec write speeds of an Extreme III SDHC card.

Both have a shortcut button that can either head directly to a photo upload site like Flickr or open an image editing tool like Photoshop to get images directly from camera cards and either offload them to the computer for editing or put them online.

Outside of speed, the two readers are split by format support and the resulting price. The Multi-Card at $20 accepts common point-and-shoot formats like Memory Stick, MMC, SDHC and xD; the $30 All-in-One adds CompactFlash for DSLRs, Memory Stick Pro Duo, and cellphone-sized formats like microSDHC and miniSDHC. Either ImageMate upgrade should be available today.

By Electronista Staff