Windows Phone Thoughts: The CF to Nearly Everything Adapter

The best thing about standards is that there is one to suit everyone. At least that's how it seems to me with memory. Once upon a time ago it was easy. You could choose from Compact Flash and ...Compact Flash. But, over the last few years a number of competitors have emerged. Sony gave us the Memory Stick, Toshiba, Sandisk and Matsushita brought us Secure Digital. And there's MMC and SM. So which one are we to use? With CF being the oldest of these it stands to reason that a CF to everything else adapter would be a useful tool. Semsons have a CF to SD/MS/SM/MMC adapter for just this purpose.



The CF 4 in 1 Adapter is a brilliant idea and looks to be well engineered. I was able to easily use this with an iPAQ 3850 (with CF Sleeve) and Jornada 548 to read and write to my Sandisk secure digital card and to a Sony Memory Stick. It worked the first time with no need to install any drivers. The only downside that I can see, is the size. At 89 mm long, it is longer than a normal PC Card. This means that it protrudes significantly out of the device you plug it into.

Vital Statistics
So what does this adapter deliver? It lets you use SD, MS, SM and MMC cards from either a Type 1 or Type 2 CF slot. It does this without loading any drivers. So that means that it is basically a passive interface between CF and the other media type. The other vital statistics are

• Dimensions: 89mm (L) X 50mm (W) X 10mm (H)
  
• Weight ~ 30 grams
  
• Supports Windows 98/98SE/2000/ME/XP, MAC OS 8.6 and above and Windows CE 2.0 and above
  
• Draws power directly from host computer/PDA
  

Figure 1: The CF 4 in 1 adapter with a PC Card network card, a CF memory card and an SD card. As you can see the adapter is not all that small.

So, how does it perform?
I tested this adapter in three different devices

• iPAQ 3850 with CF Expansion Pack
  
• Jornada 548
  
• Kodak DC 3200 digital camera

When using the adapter in the two different Pocket PCs it worked the first time, every time with no issues. I just plugged it into the CF slots, inserted either an SD card or Memory Stick and it just worked. That's the good news. However, you can only insert one memory card into the adapter at a time. Because of its small size, you can't get two cards into the adapter at the same time.

I was also able to use the adapter in my digital camera. This is really handy as I can now use my SD card with my camera to view and edit images on my Pocket PC. However, the entire adpater end of the card was left hanging out of my camera.

I did not notice any extra battery drain in my use. However, I am sure that it will use a little more power as it has a couple of LEDs. One is used to indicate that the card is receiving power from its host and the other indicates when the adapter is in use.


Figure 2: The CF 4 in 1 adapter with an SD card inserted. About 10 mm of the SD card protrudes from the adapter when inserted.

Gotchas
This device does exactly what it's designed to do with a minmum of fuss. It's reliable and, from my experience, compatible with a variety of host devices and memory cards. The specifiactions are pretty specific about compatibility being with memory cards so I doubt that it will support SDIO devices.

The biggest issue with this adapter is the size. When inserted in a CF slot about 50 mm of the adapter is left hanging out. While I did not find this to be a major problem it may limit its use in devices like digital cameras as it may alter the way you need to hold the device.

Availability and Price
The CF 4 in 1 Adapter is available from Semson and Co. The normal retail price is $50.99 USD. However it is currently on sale for $29.99 USD.

Conclusions
The CF 4 in 1 adapter is pretty cool piece of hardware. It does what it sets out to do simply and reliably. While it is a little cumbersome because of its size this is not a major drawback. Its real value comes from its flexibility. It lets you use the most common memory formats easily in any device with a CF slot.