I love VIZO! This company makes all these cool little gadgets that actually are made well and help scratch that itch I have… You know the itch, the one that constantly scratches and irritates you because of your overwhelming need to have more gizmos and electronic devices. It’s one of those things that I have just accepted.
I kid you not, I have the following items within reach right at this moment, Two I-pods, a Zen media player, three PSPs, four Nintendo DSs, a digital camera, a digital camcorder, multiple USB ports, two different bluetooth accesories and now a brand new card reader appropriately titled the Mirrorbox.
Well wait a minute, why is it titled the Mirrorbox? It is mostly a black colored metal box with the only reflective surface being the sides and back edge, merely 20% mirror, hmmm, Mirrorbox indeed.
But more to the point, the device is roughly one and a half inches deep by three and a half inches wide and barely more then a half inch tall. So it’s a very small and unassuming little device that can be tucked away when not in use.
The unit comes with a USB cord about one meter long with the plug in located on the backside. For a device that can read 32 different cards there are only four different slots located on the front. Bear in mind that the slots are of all strange size and shape and that most of the time, a card does not fit in the slots as snug as you might hope since each of the four slots is designed there is two slots that are designed for a single style of card, but the other two are meant for multiple cards.
Here’s a description straight from Vizo:
Sleek, compact and portable. VIZO MirrorBOX 32-in-1 Card Reader is extremely versatile for your personal or business use. Support 32 of the most popular memory cards . USB powered device with low power consumption and no external power required. Plus, it is small enough to fit in your pocket. It is great convenient of you to bring it to anywhere for storing, downloading and sharing data between your computer, memory cards or external devices.
Vizo Mirrorbox 32-in-1 Card Reader Specifications
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The weight of this particular device is quite light and while it is built fairly sleek and unassuming, one would think that if the wrong hit to it occured, the metal walls of it would collapse. Not that you would be playing raquetball with this thing, but if you are like me and you move your equipment around a lot, then placing a monitor on top of it would probably crush it like a soda can.
You know, I like how this whole thing was set up, but to me I almost wished it had a single USB port for popping in flash drives, but hey, maybe we’ll see that in the next version.
Installing the device was as easy as plugging the thing in. It’s a high speed USB 2.0 device but is backwards compatible with USB 1.1. It comes with a long USB cord, so it can be placed wherever you need it. No drivers are needed for Windows 2000 and above, however Windows 98 users will need to download a driver from the Vizo website.
Now I do not own 32 different memeory cards, so please understand if I didn’t rush out and purchase them for the purpse of writing a review. I do however have several, and plugged everyone of them into this reader.
First on the menu, Sony’s memory stick Pro, the one I use on my digital camera. The card loaded on very quickly and the reader popped the pictures into the hopper as fast as the camera does. The same thing could be said of my MS card from my Brother’s digital camera and my memory stick duo from one of my PSPs.
In fact, I saw no discernable difference whether it was pictures, audio files or movies, they all downloaded and were readily accessable in the Mirrorbox as fast as they were in their original devices. All cards tested fit snuggly into the input ports. I am wondering why VIZO does not provide plastic or rubber caps for the ports not in use. We all know that these kinds of things attract dust like nobody’s business.
I like this little thing, sure it’s small, but it has an awful lot of versatility in its miniscule frame. VIZO has been making some decent products and this is another one. Sure it’s not perfect, but rarely is anything perfect in the world.
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