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RBMODS REVIEWS |
Date 2008-05-02
Provider: Spire
Author: Ville Ilonen
Editor: Amber Lupala
Spire SP332CB 3.5" Internal Card Reader
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 the premier brand for computer thermal solutions. In order to meet the needs of the global market, we have established the production facilities in China, our corporate office in the USA and overseas branches in The Netherlands, U.K., Germany, France, Taiwan, Japan and Brazil. All are strategically located to better work with the customers we serve.
The purpose built Spire factory and all of the products were approved by CE, UR, CSA, and TUV in 1998. We have gained AMD and VIA approvals along with recognition by International Standard Commission for Quality Assurance in 1999 against ISO-9002 and ISO-9001. (No.Q16437)
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With today"s high-speed processors functioning at an unprecedented speed and output, the demand for better and more reliable cooling solutions has become one of the most important issues in the computer industry today. As a premier manufacturer of high quality cooling solutions, we are able to meet the demands of the computer industry by providing competitively priced products, next day delivery and lifetime warranty.
The reliability of our products has earned the loyalty of many well known manufacturers and distributors throughout the world and we have maintained close business ties with international names in the computer industry.
At Spire we continually strive to improve and develop a wide range of thermal products by investing heavily in our quality manufacturing process and Research & Development. Our objective is to provide top quality products for national distributors as well as for ODM and OEM clients. We are always moving forward with new and innovative thermal solutions.
This year we are continuing the ongoing enhancements of our current production machinery as well as purchasing new equipment in an effort to provide an ever improving product line. One of our latest machines enables us to balance our fan blades with a greater degree of accuracy. By balancing the blades more efficiently, we are able to extend the life of the bearing and reduce the overall noise of the fan. This technique also allows us to increase the speed of fans without increasing the noise.
Our focus is to build on the current success of the Spire brand so that our brand is recognized world wide as a provider of top quality cooling solutions. We will continue to work to maintain the satisfaction of our customers and share the knowledge of our experts to provide our customer's with 'The perfect cooling solution'.
Specifications:
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
The product:
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
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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
Current Real Time Pricing
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