09-01-2006, 02:37 PM

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 I know the MacBook Pro has a Expresscard/34 which I've heard is a newer version of the PCMCIA slot.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.

09-01-2006, 02:43 PM

No apple computers have built in card readers so you need to go 3rd party. ExpressCard34 is not compatible with PCMCIA so you would need either USB/Firewire/ExpressCard reader. USB is by far the cheapest and FireWire and ExpressCard is not too common so they are more expensive.

Looking at your demands especially with the Video editing, and what looks like extensive photo work I would recommend the Pro for you because of the separate graphics card

05-03-2007, 02:33 PM

All you need is SteerMouse. Best $20 I've ever spent on mouse software:

http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/

100% awesome!

05-03-2007, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by kaidomac

All you need is SteerMouse. Best $20 I've ever spent on mouse software:

http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/

100% awesome!

I'm a little confused as to how that answered any of his questions... but the idea of an automatic cursor is pretty cool!

You can get some very tiny, practical 5 in 1 USB 2.0 card readers from Sandisk for $15. Or, as already said, if you go with a MBP, $30-$40 gets you a 5 in 1 expresscard reader, in no way compatible with PCMCIA...