Delkin Travel Reader Review DDREADER-46

Introduction

The Delkin Devices Travel Reader DDREADER-46 provides a portable solution for reading and writing SD and microSD cards. It supports SDHC and SDXC cards including UHS-I.

Protective caps are provided for both ends to cover the USB and card slots. Both SD and microSD cards can be stored in the reader with the end cap on. There is no provision to store these caps when the reader is in use and although the caps appear as if they might connect together they do not.

The card access light is located on the side of the reader between the D and E of "Devices." The light shines through the case which is slightly translucent, giving it a blue hue. The resulting light is not very bright but it is visible through both the top and side of the reader. The LED illuminates when a card is in the reader and blinks when a card is being read.

The Travel Reader will only work with one card at a time. It allocates a single drive letter for the reader. If the reader is connected with both cards, it defaults to the microSD card. Otherwise it uses the first card that was inserted.

Both slots operate smoothly and cards seat firmly in the reader. The SD card is easy to grab even with a microSD card in the reader, but the microSD is much easier to remove when there is no SD card in the reader.

The packaging lists "UHS-I & UHS-II Compatibility," but the reader lacks the extra pins to support the UHS-II interface. It will work with UHS-II cards, but they operate only in UHS-I mode.

With the caps on the Delkin Travel Reader measures just over 3 inches long. Without caps it is 2 5/8 inches in length. Total width is about 1 inch and the thickness is roughly 1/2 inch. Compared with similar readers such as the Transcend RDF5 and Kingston MobileLite G4 , the Delkin seems unnecessarily bulky. The Kingston reader also supports UHS-II, whereas the other readers do not.

Performance

Benchmark performance using UHS-I SD cards measured up to 97.5 MB/s sequential read and 92.1 MB/s sequential write. The Travel Reader is compatible with UHS-II cards only because the cards are backwards compatible. They operate and perform like UHS-I cards in the reader.

The read and write performance using various Secure Digital and microSD cards shown in the table below.

Reader: Delkin Travel Reader
Benchmark: CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64
Program settings: 1000 MB, 5 passes, random test data
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K @ 4.40GHz
RAM: 32GB DDR3 1600

Compatible operating systems include Windows and Max OS. It supports USB 3.0, and is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and 1.1 ports. The Delkin Travel Reader has a one warranty.

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