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26735
November 24th, 2015 11:00
Card reader specs?
The only spec I can find, anywhere, for the 17R3 (and I guess other recent models) card reader is "3-in-1 card reader"; device manager shows it as Realtek but no other details.
This should not be this hard!
Does somebody know what the card reader specs are?
Specifically:
- What the magical 3 formats are? :-)
- What the transfer speed of the reader is ie, what is the upper limit to card speed before I'm wasting my money?
- IS UHS-2 supported. This is important, because this is a different physical configuration to UHS-1, and without it I would almost certainly be wasting money buying UHS-2 cards (even though my camera has UHS-2 compatibility).
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Alienware - Rodrigo
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4.4K Posts
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November 25th, 2015 10:00
Hi,
Click here to view the system specifications manual. It should list the specifications for the card reader.
hindesite
276 Posts
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November 25th, 2015 12:00
Type One 3‑in‑1 slot
Cards supported
•SD card
•SD High‑Capacity (SDHC) card
•SD Extended Capacity (SDXC) card
which is usually considered one type (since they are all the same physically).
There's no mention of UHS-2 support, which is going to become important over the next year or so; nor any mention of performance, supported maximum card speed etc.
I'm guessing that the card reader installed is something that changes, hence the relatively useless spec.
How do I find out the reader I've got, and the spec for it?
CJJacobs
49 Posts
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November 27th, 2015 02:00
You're overthinking something simple. [^o)]
It supports SDHC which tells you that it supports NS, HS, and UHS-I cards up to 32GB.
It supports SDXC which tells you that it supports NS, HS, and UHS-I cards from 32GB up to 2TB.
As such it means that it supports the speeds that go with those specs or it couldn't be labeled as being compatible with those standards.
Note that the reader isn't labeled as supporting SDHC II or SDXC II thus indicating that it doesn't support UHS-2. Although you may think UHS-2 will become important over the next year or two, until it actually becomes the norm you won't find built in support for it in most consumer devices. Look how long it took for USB 2 and 3 to become standard equipment....
hindesite
276 Posts
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November 27th, 2015 16:00
I hope so, but TBH Dell are not helping here. I can't recall any other SD card related device, that has no labeling.
OK, now I run into a problem. How is the bus speed tied into the SDXC spec, because as I read it, the UHS-1 part (and corresponding bus speed) is assumed, ie all SDXC are UHS-1 unless labelled otherwise. But why do the lower bus speeds even exist, if the UHS-1 spec over-rides everything?
But the card reader isn't labelled anywhere! Not on the device, not in the specification manual, and even Dell tech support don't know what it is! The only mention is that it is SDXC, but without any logo to confirm, the UHS-1 status is assumed. Nowhere is it labelled SDXC I, or SDXC II.
I think you are incorrect there - one of my cameras already has it (see above), and I bought it well before this laptop. I'm not worried about support in most consumer devices, I'm concerned about support in the devices I have, right now. It may not be important to everybody, for sure, but it is slightly important to me.
And I'm a little disappointed that this very expensive laptop doesn't have a card reader that meets the most current spec at the time of release. It should have; I expect to be using this laptop for several years.
For example, we have thunderbolt 3, USB-C, and those other interfaces are all pretty much up with the current state of play.
I think card readers are treated very much as a commodity, and they just fit whatever is available at the time of production - hence the lack of specification and labeling (though I guess maybe there's a few cents to be saved by not labeling). I'll guess later production of the 17r3 will have SDXC II by default.
Anyway, I've got a couple of UHS-2 SDXC cards on order, I'll update with results if the cards turn out to be fast enough themselves to produce any meaningful results; otherwise, external card readers are inexpensive (though I'd rather have less clutter, not more).