[markw10]

I am switching from Windows to Mac and I'm used to having memory card readers in my pc's but it seems neither of the Mac Laptops has one (the Macbook or MacBook Pro). Is that true?
I definitely want this feature so it means I would have to somehow add it. With my older laptop I added a PCMCIA card. I know the MacBook Pro has a Expresscard/34 which I've heard is a newer version of the PCMCIA slot. Does the Expresscard/34 work with the older PCMCIA cards (backward compatible)? If not, are there Expresscard/34 memory card readers?
As well, are there usb card readers for USB or Firewire? I know with a laptop it's not as handy as having it 'built in' in a slot but yet I could keep it in my laptop case.

Part of it is I'm undecided between a Macbook and Macbook Pro. the CPU is fine for me in the Macbook. Well I know if the MacBook Pro upgrades to Meron that will sway me that way and from what I've heard that upgrade is later on down the line for Macbook. The main thing is I like the Expresscard/34 slot in the Pro but yet with firewire/usb I don't know how important that is. The one other thing is the better graphics. The 13" screen si fine in the Macbook since at home I'd hook it up to a 17" monitor and even plug in a external keyboard/mouse. For what I'll use it for, taking digital pictures from a camera and modifying in Adobe Photoshop, graphics design (2D) in Adobe Illustrator, web page design and animation using Macromedia Dreamweaver and Macromedia Flash, office work with Excel and Word in Office for Mac, business accounting with Quicken/Quickbooks, and video work with a program like final cut pro to take video in from the camcorder, edit, and burn to DVD. I will do little if any 3D modeling and for games, very little. Most of the games I play are older games such as Simcity and a lot of puzzle like games like chess, mahjong, not the very advanced games. For that I use my xbox 360 or my desktop windows machine. Like I said if the Pro goes with meron and the macbook doesn't for months that could lean me towards a pro but I think most of the work if not all will work on the macbook. I will be using bootcamp or parallels though to run some windows software. Originally I planned on 50/50 between mac and pc but it may be more like 20% windows only for those few programs that I can't use on the Mac. Anyway, sorry to ramble but thanks in advance for any help.

[Tuoder]

SIIG ExpressCard 11-in-1 Card ReaderWriter CE-E01012-S1 at TigerDirect.com

I didn't look very hard, but there it is. As a professor at school oncee told me: "Google is your friend."

[CanadaRAM]

Almost all USB card readers are USB
There ARE a few Firewire flash card readers on the market but they are relatively expensive and have no real benefit.

ExpressCard/34 is not compatible with, and not adaptable to, PCMCIA. Or vice-versa.

Make sure you get 2 Gb RAM for the Adobe software. Order the machine from Apple with the minimum RAM and add 2 x 1 Gb SODIMMs from a reputable third party seller who guarantees MacBook Pro compatibility and offers a lifetime warranty.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

[romeosc]

compusa has a usb card reader that stores up to 1GB that will auto download pictures from SD card and then save to computer when connected!

[JKT]

One thing to be aware of - I can't recall exactly which style memory card it is (Compact Flash??) - but the ExpressCard/34 slot in the MacBook Pro is too narrow to accommodate that particular style memory card and therefore there will not be an ExpressCard for it (if Apple had opted for the wider slot - /54? - this wouldn't have been an issue). However, there are plenty of external memory card readers using USB.

I'm not sure if the other card linked to above is /54 or /34, but this Belkin one is /34 and Mac compatible

[ghporter]

The PC card standard was actually a superset of Compact Flash, so a PC card, CF reader was almost entirely a pass through device (I have several, all work the same). The Express Card is an advance that gives users access to a PCI-Express bus connection for external devices. I haven't seen any major releases of Express card products, but I expect that there will be at least a few multi-memory card devices available.

But USB 2.0 is fine for almost all memory card applications, and I've yet to see a USB memory reader that didn't work (without drivers) on my wife's iBook.

[JKT]

FWIW, getting an external memory card reader is possibly preferable as you will be able to use it with any Mac or PC that you have, whereas an ExpressCard will be limited to those machines that have that slot. It'll depend on your portability requirements.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by CanadaRAM

Almost all USB card readers are USB
There ARE a few Firewire flash card readers on the market but they are relatively expensive and have no real benefit.

Absolutely not true. Test after test has shown that FireWire readers are the fastest way to read high-speed CompactFlash cards, faster than USB 2, PC Card, or CardBus readers.

tooki