Digital Foci Photo Safe 80GB Digital Picture Storage

See it at Amazon.com for $79.00

Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)

Amazon Customer Reviews

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Wonderful

First you must know that the LC display color isn't green but blue, which for me is better.

This little gadget is very useful to store your photos in a trip or when you're on the field. It's fast as reads lot of memory cards. In my case I'm using Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) and all is perfect.

You can use this device as a portable hard disk as well. And with the 80GB capacity there are lot of stuff you can save.

You can't view the photos, but for this price what are you asking for? Just look at the portable media players and you'll find that anything with the capacity to show the pictures will cost you three times more.

Digital Foci PSF-250 Photo Safe is the perfect friend for serious photographers.

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Digital Foci Photo Safe picture storage

There's one major glitch with the Digital Foci... there's no notification after you download that says everything went ok. I like a little positive confirmation before wiping my flash card clean, saying my images were copied and there were no errors.

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Ideal travel companion for flash-based HD camcorders and high megapixel cameras

I have a Canon Powershot TX1 combo 7.1 MP still camera plus 720p HD video camcorder. The video eats flash storage at a rate of 8 GB per 28 min! So the Digital Foci Photo Safe (I got the 120 GB version) is the perfect travel companion for one of these new flash-based HD camcorders. The Photo Safe does one thing and one thing only: it copies the contents of a flash card to its hard drive. That's it.

There are two buttons: one is on/off, the other is multi-use. You stick in the flash card (including SDHC), power it up (either plugged into wall or using built-in battery), it displays how many GB worth of files are on the card, and you press the function key to start copying. It takes 29.5 min to copy a full 8 GB card, and on a full charge I was able to copy two full 8 GB cards; the battery died about half way through copying the 3rd 8 GB card. In other words, on a full charge, it will do a little over an hour of copying. Of course, you can always plug it in while copying, but it's useful to know how much it'll do on batteries alone. During copying, it shows the progress in percent. For each card it copies, it creates a folder named by the card type and a 4-digit sequential number. So the seventh SD card it copies is named SD0007. That's it. That's all it does. And it does do it very well and reliably. But there are no file management capabilities, except showing how full the hard drive is. You can't selectively delete copied folders, the crude LCD can't display photos (need to step up to more expensive media players to do that), and it can't copy only new files in a card.

But the added bonus is that it serves as an extra external hard drive with a built-in flash card reader (there aren't many flash card readers capable of reading SDHC cards as of Decembr 2007). When connected to a PC via USB, it is powered by the USB port and doesn't need the power adapter.

Overall, I am very satisfied with this product and, knowing what it does and doesn't do, it is highly recommended as a simple and reliable device to back up flash cards while travelling. It's the ideal companion to new flash-based high-def camcorders or even high megapixel cameras.

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despite early issues I really like it

I didn't want to pay a fortune for a photo storage device to take on trips if I don't want to haul around the laptop, and I can review the pictures in the camera so I don't feel the need to see them in the storage device for at least triple the price. I take a lot of pictures in raw so I need a lot of storage, I can shoot 6 gigs in a morning easy and I do like to review shots up close before deleting as some I didn't like in the camera end up being good with a little processing. So a two week trip would use a lot of expensive cards. The Digital Foci Photo Safe is the perfect solution for me.

We had a couple of problems to begin with; it wouldn't charge at first, then one of the cards wouldn't transfer. Tech support at Digital Foci was outstanding and quick. Such a refreshing experience it was worth having the problems. I now feel I know more than I would have about the device.

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Photo Safe

The photo safe is terrific! It is easy to use, light weight and makes you feel secure about your photos on a trip. I highly recommend it!

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