Aus,
I just received my SanDisk Photo Album (SPA). The delivery time was 3 days from the time I placed the order. Chalk one up for the USPS.
So far I've only removed the SPA from it's package, so I can only make a couple of comments about it at this time.
1) Very neat package, complete with cables, adapter,2 cables, and a CD containing Startup instructions, etc.
2) Upon reading the specs, I was amazed to find that the connection to the PC will be by USB 1.1. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't remember seeing the USB spec on the SanDisk website. I was planning to use the device as a card reader input to my PC, but now I'll just go on using the back-of-PC USB 2.0 input.
Had I known about USB 1.1, I wouldn't have made the purchase, not even for the purpose of evaluation. However, I will not return the unit because I want to check out the operational features and quality of the display. We are ending the year 2004, and SanDisk comes out with a USB 1.1 device. Awful!
I don't know why SanDisk is so secretive about the performance of many of it's products. I have found it frustrating in the past not to have any idea of the speed of the SanDisk CF cards; ie. before the Ultra Series. Compare that to the Lexar specs which right from the beginning contained a speed value such as 2X, 4X, etc. I like to deal with numbers, and terms such as "high speed" mean nothing to me. Even the announcement of the firmware upgrade for the SPA doesn't say anything about the reason for the upgrade.
I hate to sound so negative about SanDisk at the moment, especially when I think about the enthusiasm shown by the contributors to this thread in the late 1990s.
I'll give more comments about SPA, the chips falling where they may, after I've had the chance to use the unit.
NHP |
