It is a flash memory card reader/harddisk case/digital photo bank.
While still waiting for the Nikon CoolWalker to come out, I wasn’t going to get a digital photo bank just yet. I needed an external HD case as my old one for 3.5″ HD stopped working. A replacement would cost some where around HKD $150-$230. Nice thing would be I have spare 3.5″HD. Bad thing is, most need external power.
Upon checking out some of the external cases for 2.5″HD, which runs anywhere from HKD $45-$200, I came across the Transcend StoreJet 40GB for HKD$1300 gray marketed goods or HKD$1950 dealer goods. The case is very small, smart looking and slick. But I thought the 1.8″ HD that came with the StoreJet comes at a premium and that it costs too much for a ext HD. So, I chose the QCool instead.
It has an aluminum alloy case, takes just about any memory cards with xD support using a CF adapter with USB2.0 support. Don’t know about SD mini or RS-MMC cards. Comes with a tiny multi-voltage 5V 1.5A AC-DC adapter, a USB cable, a carry case, a screw driver, some spare screws and a disc for Win98SE drivers.
I have tested the battery with a 1GB IBM MicroDrive fully loaded with tones of photos and found that it takes about 17 minutes to copy the entire card. I then let it rest for 15 minutes and test it again repeatedly. The battery allows 3 full downloads. With the D1H being able to take about 1000 photos with a CF card and about 270 photos with the MD in one full charge, I am guessing the QCool could take maybe 6-10GB worth of download with flash memory cards. Not too bad for a days work. Full recharge took 3 full hours.
Operation is very simple. Just turn on the QCool, plug in a memory card, press the “OK” button and way it goes. As soon as the downloading is done, the QCool immediately turns itself off automatically. Any error, possibly due to lack of power will be displayed with an error message upon the next power on and it shows how many files did get copied.
Plugging the USB cable into a computer with Windows ME/NT/2000/XP /MacOSX will immediate show the card reader and the ext HD drive. The QCool is said to take both internal battery power as well as USB port power at the same time unless the power adapter is plugged in.
More test is needed to see whether the battery holds it juice if left unused for a few days.
As far, I am quite happy with its small case (which is one of the smallest of its kind), material made, craftsmanship, and smooth and quick operations. But the still have to work out how to carry the USB cable without taking up too much more space.
Dear Fanny,
So accidently, we are just the manufacturer of QCool OTG. If you are interested, pls check our website http://www.qcool.cn or http://www.freelink.com.hk . Hope you are interested.
Hope to hear from you!
Best regards,
Angel
Hi Angel,
I am actually using a second QCool OTG now. My first one, as shown in the message, was full and the battery was not quite up to the task for a full download of a 4GB SanDisk Extreme III Compact Flash, so I kept it as a backup and decided to try the latest generation of the QCool OTG which I was told to have a quicker file transfer rate. While I haven’t done many full 4GB transfers since I bought the new one, the new one seems to work quite well and also seems to work better with my Apple Powerbook.
All in all, I am quite happy with the QCool OTG and would recommend it anytime. Since my first QCool OTG, I have already got my friends and cousins to buy a total of 5 more among them and they are all very happy with it.
Great product! Keep up the good work.
James.
Hi
I’m using the QCool OTG and I have a couple of problem.
1. it is not recognised in every PC with WinXP installed (for instance, with my laptop works, but with another home PC it does not)
2. It not recognise all the content of my SanDisk Secure Digital 2GB. It reads only 1GB.
There is a software/firmware update elsewhere???
Thanks for all your info.
Hi Salvatore,
Strange. If it continues to work on your laptop PC, I don’t see how it doesn’t on any desktop PCs at all. Try using a different cable. You might want to send Angel (see the first comment above) an email about this connection problem.
As to the SD 2GB problem, I believe it is because the QCool does not recognize “SDHC” cards. Just about all SD cards in the market that is larger than 1GB are SDHC with the exception of Transcend, a brand that has produced regular SD cards that is not SDHC at higher than 1GB capacities.
SDHC came out a couple of years after the latest QCool did. Since I haven’t seen any device, including digital cameras, that have any software updates available for this transition to using SDHC cards, I don’t think it is a software issue and therefore rendering the QCool obsolete in this regard. If you want to keep using the QCool, I am afraid Transcend SD cards might be the only solution.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
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