All Photographers Need a Card Reader Is the Lexar Hub for you?
Postman Fro just dropped off another package on his way to the bar.
Let me start off by saying LEXAR is not a sponsor, this is not an ad, this is simply an unboxing and sniff test of a piece of gear.
This time around Postman Fro dropped off the Lexar Hub HR1 Card Reader. This one so happens to belong to Stephen as it was a gift he got over the holidays.
As photographers we all need to have a way of getting the images from the card to our computers. I have had many different card readers over the past 10 years but never have I had one that takes up to four memory cards. I once had one that took CF and SD but that was the extent of it.
The Lexar Hub so happens to be USB 3.0 which means you are going to get super fast transfer rates when connected to a USB 3.0 port. But before you can transfer anything you actually need to purchase some extra accessories.
The Hub itself will run you $79.99 which is not bad in the least for a professional card reader. You pretty much are paying for an empty shell and you will have to purchase anywhere from one to four card readers. You can choose from SD and CF which will run you just under $30. You also have an option of picking up an XQD card reader for around $40.
Each card reader can act as a stand alone USB 3.0 reader which I found to be a really great option. If you travel a lot, you wont take the hub with you but you may take one or two of the smaller card readers.
The key feature to the hub is the fact that it will transfer multiple cards at a time. That means you can load it up with any combo of card and start transferring them all.
I have yet to test out or use this card reader but I am looking to pick the hub up with two CF, one SD and on XQD reader.
Like I always say, do not cheap out on cards and now on top of that do not cheap out on card readers. Your pictures are the most important thing you have so make sure your card reader is not the thing that messes them up.
Bellow you will find the transcript for this video.
Click here to read the transcript
Jared Polin: Its postman fro with a package for you. Bing bong. It’s your generic package. Hello. Anybody in there? I got your package. Its postman fro with the generic package. Oh yeah. Oh my god it’s my generic package. What could it be? Yeah its so amazing. Alright postman fro where you’re off to next? I don’t know maybe there’s a bar. Alright have one for me. For me, for me man alright postman fro is going to go have a drink.
Here we go Jared Polin froknowsphoto.com here with the Lexar Professional Workflow HR-1. That’s right. A couple of months ago they came out with this docking station that’s going to allow you to put up the four memory cards in there and treasure them all at the same time using USB 3.0. That was a mouthful. Now let’s see what this thing really is. It’s much bigger than I expected it to be. One card reader is going to take up a little piece of your desk. This thing almost looks like a drobo right. Let me take it out. Let’s smell it. Let’s see how it works and see if it’s really good. This one is actually Stevens. Steven got this for the holidays right Steven?
Steven: Yeah.
Jared Polin: Alright so let’s see what’s in this box first. Oh my god it smells like a leather belt like one of those Wrangler leather belts. That’s the box so in this box you have a USB 3.0 pluggy mickplugerson [Phonetic] [0:01:43] right there. You’ve got a European adapter and you have a proper, not proper adapter. You have the adapter for the United States that one, and then you’ve got the power cube right so that stuff is going to take up a little bit of space and then you’ve got this big box thing. It’s like it looks like, it really looks like a big hard drive. It looks like a dual hard drive from, from somebody and this has to sit on your desk. Now it’s got the nice plug in the back that’s for your USB 3.0 which is fast, really love that. It’s going to plug into your iM actually you need to have the newer iMac for the USB 3.0. This is going to work with the Mac Pros the new towers. It’s going to work with your PCs. They all have USB 3.0. It looks nice.
I mean I wouldn’t mind having this sitting on my desk, but I don’t know that I’m personally going to need to transfer 14 cards at the same time maybe if I shot a concert and I had multiple cards to transfer that could be good because you could set it and forget it and then come back later. So I’m assuming you pop this open. Okay so this is pretty simple how this works. You pop this open and you have a USB 3.0 plug-in here. Alright you got that. And then I’m going to open one of these. You have to buy these things separately. Let me get out my trustemic trusterson knife. I’m going to open it up. Boom. How do I get into this without ruining it? I don’t want Steven to yell at me. He will yell at me. He will be like Jared, don’t break my baggage. And I’ll be like I won’t. So anyway, here it is. Which one did I pull out of the box? This is the SD card slot so you can get SD CompactFlash, and they make an XQD for nobody who gives a crap because nobody does care.
So what you could do is get two SD cards and two CF cards or you could yet three of one and one of the other. I believe that’s what Steven did. He picked up three CompactFlash cards because he uses those more, but it’s nice to have the SD. Now I would have to get an XQD card because that’s what the D4 takes, but that’s pretty cool. I have all of these docking stations and you are just literally seated up there boom pop it in there. It’s in so in essence, this is just one big card reader with adapters, and you put them in there and you’re good to go. I mean it smells pretty cool. It’s a nice little winner. I mean I like this for 79.99 [Phonetic] [0:03:57] if you do a lot of transferring that’s not expensive for a really good card reader, but this card reader right here this is about is about $23. The CompactFlash ones around $23 ish as well. But then the XQD card is $44 to get that adapter. That’s right.
Its almost twice as much to get something that people cared twice as little about, and I’m going to continue to say that until Sony gets rid of it because nobody cares about the XQD card. Now back to your Lexar card reader. I actually like this. It’s not, I mean yes it’s big but it’s not that big. You could sit on the side of your desk if you do a lot of transferring and you have a lot of cards going get one of these things 79.99, 79.95 on the website is what it was. Get the adapter so you need, even if you just get one of each and then decide if you need multiples because if you want to do multiple cards you pop it in here you’re good to go, and that is it. Not a bad little investment for a fast speedy Mcpeterson [Phonetic] [0:04:54] transfer rate because it’s USB 3.0. That’s best. I actually like this. Can’t wait to test it out and get some feedback about how it works. That’s it. Thanks postman fro hope you’re enjoying that drink Jared Polin froknowsphoto.com. See ya.
