Mobile storage devices

[gary_hendricks]

Is there any device out there other than memory cards that will allow you to transfer your photos into? I'm looking for a compact design such as an ipod, but not as bulky as a laptop, I have to be able to carry it with me for a long period of time, any suggestions?

[SamuraiJack]

I would be interested as well.


Wes

[haikai]

Is there any device out there other than memory cards that will allow you to transfer your photos into? I'm looking for a compact design such as an ipod, but not as bulky as a laptop, I have to be able to carry it with me for a long period of time, any suggestions?

there are a number of solutions for this... there are several "digital photo wallet" products (the best of which may be the epson p-2000) where you can insert a flash memory card (i think the epson only takes CF) and offload your pictures there. higher end ones like the p-2000 have large lcd screens to review your images in greater clarity than you could from your camera. Archos has an old mp3 player (gmini 220) that does the same except it has a small, greyscale screen. i'm sure there are others, these are just the ones i remember from when i was researching this too:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/P-2000.shtml
http://stephenvoss.com/Gmini220/

there are also a number of mp3/pmp products on the horizon that will have USB OTG (on-the-go) support so that you'll be able to transfer directly from your camera to the device. some may already be avaiable...

-hai

[Thalas'shaya]

how about an ipod photo? http://www.apple.com/ipodphoto/ they can connect direct to your camera or you can "feed" them from software on your pc (like adobe photoshop elements).

or a pda with a card reader? i'm not sure exactly which pda my friends have, but they use it to dump their photos off their kodak digicam when they're on vacation. i know palm reads SD and MMC. http://kb.palmone.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=97,E=0000000000035825428,K=779,Sxi=19,useTempl ate=Case.tem,CASE=8533

[D70FAN]

Is there any device out there other than memory cards that will allow you to transfer your photos into? I'm looking for a compact design such as an ipod, but not as bulky as a laptop, I have to be able to carry it with me for a long period of time, any suggestions?

Gary, what's your budget? PQI makes a 40GB "does everything" unit that sells for $599. (There is an 80GB version as well).

http://www.pqi.com.tw/product2.asp?CATE1=8&PROID=1

I played with one of these at Embedded Systems Conference, and it is incredible...but not cheap.

Since I travel with my laptop, I don't really need one of these, but if I did...

[speaklightly]

George-

We have an upcoming contract in Russia where carrying a laptop could be a hassle, when traveling inside the country itself. In the past we have dealt only with major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg and we have had to boot up the laptop to demonstrate that it was a real operative laptop computer, and not some covert electronic device. Once it was booted up they were very inquisitive about what programs were loaded on the laptop. It was time consuming, but we got through.

On this upcoming contract we will be traveling in the countryside away from the big cities a lot and we have been advised that our laptop might indeed be a problem. So we are researching that more to find out if it is true.

So a storage device like the Epson P-2000 could become a good alternative if our laptop is indeed a problem. Frankly, it will be hard to travel without the laptop, but if we must, then a storage device would indeed be needed.

Any internal Russian travelers who can help us out with some on the ground experience?

Sarah Joyce

[aparmley]

I would think that if you are getting hassled over a laptop they may think this dump to device is some sort of electronic device that may be threatening? [after all, we have corporate companies in this country that have banned their employees from taking a ipod to work as it is could be used as a medium for either transporting information out or bringing harmful code into the company] will it be used for storing sensitive top secret documents? LOL I don't know. they may want to verfiy what is on the device and that may take time also. Good luck with that... a problem I would much rather run into than just wishing I could travel the world.

[ReF]

there's also the wolverine flashpac and sixpac models but it doesn't seem like anyone has any kind of experience with these. i was going to buy a flashpac for the trip i took about a month ago but they got sold out, so i barrowed a memory card to cd burner device called roadstor (there are several different models). it did the job and with the added security of having all my photos on different cd's instead on one hard drive that could possibly crash, but it was slow and i didn't dare use it in the car when it's on the road because i don't think it had skip protection and any skips could possibly result in lost info.