Why no builit in card reader??

Hey everyone, I have been reading around the boards for a few days now and decided to join. I am currently a PC user, and am trying to gather information to help me with me decision whether to switch or not (although I am STRONGLY STRONGLY leaning towards Mac). My brother has been a mac user for a couple years now and it wasnt until recently playing with a Macbook my friend has that I really started considering making the switch. I was at his house and we were taking some pictures with my digital camera that he wanted to keep. So, i take my SD card out and ask him where the slot is, he said MB's dont have one, I was lost. I hear so much about Mac's being so media centric and great for people who work heavily with pictures and digital imaging, and there is no built in card reader. This is puzzling and a little concerning, but in my readings it has not seemed to come up as an issue, sure theres always getting a USB card reader which are actually very cheap, but it just seems on such a high end piece of equipment that it would come standard. Care to shed some spotlight on this anyone?

I'm going to guess that this is for aesthetics (as silly as that may sound). I picked up an express/34 card reader for my MacBook Pro for about $20. It lives there fairly permanently, and thus my MBP now has a "built-in" SD card reader...

i would guess apple didnt put a card reader in their laptops because of space and weight.

i have an 8 in 1 card reader. easy to pickup and quite cheap.

Two reasons:

1. They look ugly

2. There's so many card formats to keep up with so you'll end up with an external reader anyway.

I just plug my camera straight in. Most of them should be recognised, I'd have thought.

A card reader would add no significant weight, but they're usually not compatible with all cards. I shoot with Canon DSLRs and all Canon DSLRs use CF cards. My Dell notebook has a built in card read but does not accept CF cards....so why does my Dell have a built in card reader?

Exactly, there's about 14 or so card formats. That many would look silly on a laptop and they do take up space inside the unit.

My Macbook has neither a built-in card reader nor a floppy drive. Why? Because floppy drives are obsolete and there are...let's see at least four different types of cards that would have to be built in.

I have a camera that takes CF cards. My wife has a camera that uses SD cards. My Palm uses SD cards as does my iPaq.

To address these, I have a small device that accepts CF, SD, MD, something else cards, and is about 4"x2"x1/2" in size. It connects to my Macbook (and every other computer I have) with a USB connector.

It makes far more sense to have the very versatile USB connector that can accept a card reader, an iPod, a Palm, an iPaq, a hard drive, a TV tuner, a printer, a scanner, a DVD writer, a cell phone...rather than building in a hard-wired device that might go obsolete in a week.

For a printer...maybe; they only cost about a hundred dollars. Heck, just last week I was lamenting that it would almost be cheaper to buy a new printer than replace the ink cartridges for it. Printer manufacturers build-in card readers for consumers because it seems easier for the user. If I'm going to sink $1700 in a general purpose computer, however, I'd prefer that it not have obsolescence built-in to it and I'll provide my peripheral as a separate USB device.

I also have an external USB card reader - fine for my needs. I use SD and CF cards.

You could always buy a SD Card that has a built in USB adapter. I plan on buying one in the not too distant future.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0501/05010606sandisksdflip.asp

Our home PC is a Medion, and it has a *huge* media bay in the front. It accepts 9 different card formats, and the front of that PC just looks so cluttered and ugly. Imagine a notebook getting all dusty.

I guess it's jsut time to tag along the camera's cable on trips.

High-end Canon and Nikon's have optional wireless file transmitters.

Also, if you're a serious photographer you can use a databank. It's a card reader and external hard disk all in one. You can then connect this via USB to the computer.

I'm sure 2 big reasons are because there are so many formats, but there are readers that handle almost all formats in a compact design, so the other reason is to keep the case more clean and simple and thin.

I always wondered why the MBP's didn't have fingerprint readers, which are pretty much standard on all "professional" laptops.

Fingerprint readers are only good if you have fingers. If you are disabled it's a barrier.

Village Idiot said:

A card reader would add no significant weight, but they're usually not compatible with all cards. I shoot with Canon DSLRs and all Canon DSLRs use CF cards. My Dell notebook has a built in card read but does not accept CF cards....so why does my Dell have a built in card reader?

Click to expand...

Because Dell like to cover every square inch of their machines with ports of some sort... I'm surprised they ever dropped the Parallel Port.

Well, I have to go against the crowd here ... I agree with the OP that media card readers should be part of a Mac.

"Too many formats" is a lame excuse. My HP notebook had one small area that accepted almost all of the common ones.

I have an external reader, too. It's one more piece of equipment I have to bring with me, one more thing I need to find space for, another cable ...

If the Express/34 card slot was replaced by a CF and/or SD slot, I'm guessing about 100 times more people would use it. Between CF and SD you have a huge percentage of the devices on the market covered.

I agree with the aformentioned statements of space, compatibility, aesthetics, etc. I, too have a couple of different cameras that have different formats, and I certainly don't want 3 or 4 card slots on my laptop. Unlike my desktop, my laptop gets used in places that may not be so computer friendly. I take my MacBook into public places, ie. the ferry or coffee shop, and I don't want crumbs to get in the slot. I also bring my laptop to work onboard the ship, and the amount of dust on a ship is incredible. It's no joke why we clean a minimum of an hour per day. I certainly don't want any of that in the card reader slots. I already have rubber plugs for the firewire, DVI, and USB ports, but a multi-purpose reader would be hard to find a plug for.

ToddG said:

If the Express/34 card slot was replaced by a CF and/or SD slot, I'm guessing about 100 times more people would use it. Between CF and SD you have a huge percentage of the devices on the market covered.

Click to expand...

Yes, but then it would no longer be a "pro" laptop, it would be a media laptop. I don't argue that to most of us (myself included), a card reader would be more useful than the Express slot. However, if someday I switch to video editing with my MBP, then I'll need the Express slot for an eSATA port so that I can plug in a disk array.

I've got one of these, and it works quite well as a card reader. I believe the readers built in to Dell laptops are USB based, and this being PCI-Express based, is much faster.

The only drawback to Apple's decision (in my opinion) is these use of the 34mm slot instead of the 54mm. It looks much sleeker, but prevents the use of a CF reader (because the CF card itself is wider than 34mm).

ToddG said:

Well, I have to go against the crowd here ... I agree with the OP that media card readers should be part of a Mac.

"Too many formats" is a lame excuse. My HP notebook had one small area that accepted almost all of the common ones.

Click to expand...

You want this bolted onto your beautiful MBP...

djames42 said:

The only drawback to Apple's decision (in my opinion) is these use of the 34mm slot instead of the 54mm. It looks much sleeker, but prevents the use of a CF reader (because the CF card itself is wider than 34mm).

Click to expand...

Exactly. People say Apple was forward-thinking and allowing for future capability when it incorporated the expresscard slot, but really limited it's use when it only put the 34mm slot in. I'm pretty sure the 54mm slots also asccept the 34mm cards. I think it was most likely done that way for the smaller size, but really limited its use.

I personally don't use any type of cards or expresscard, but I think myself and most other users will be more liekly to use a card reader before the expresscard, so a reader should have been put in between the two.