Photography Thailand Forum

[Mike Horner]

I'm a Nikon fan - very happy with D70 and several lenses. But the Coolwalker (hard drive) - has me "running hot" rather than "walking cool".
Not a good product from my experience. Battery lasts no time; repeatedly locks when showing pictures on TV; poor recovery capability if files deleted in error; and gave up on me at critical time far from home !
Have had it back a couple of times to Nikon, but still playing up. When in London recently, asked Grays of Westminster (major Nikon agent) - they've stopped stocking it - "we've had just too many problems".
Would caution against it - I'd be interested to suggestions re alternate hard drives (not laptop).
Mike

[Chris Savery]

The unit I've been using is made by Vosonic and is readily available here in Bkk at Pantip. It is inexpensive but does not have an image display so may not match what you need. They do make a number of models and I'm not familiar with the others. I recall there being a UK web site that had all the info though so google it if it interests you. The lower end one I have cost about 1600 baht = approx. $45 US. and then you can put whatever 2.5" hard drive you like in it. It has a multi-format card slot that you stick your card in and press a button and it cpoies it to the hard drive. Very simple as a backup device while travelling. It connects via USB 2.0 and is pretty fast. You can also access the card slot via the USB connector to use it as a card reader. The battery is actually a Nokia LiIon phone battery inside, easy and cheap to get extras or in a pinch to buy most places. It came with a huge power adapter for charging it but I found out that a small lightweight Nokia charger (mine is for a 6100) also works, though it is somewhat slower to get a charge done. I leave it on overnight and it's done. My test when I first bought was that it would read about 8GB of CF cards before the battery got too low, so extra batteries may be needed if you do a lot every day.

The unit I had worked very well - never mucked up copies. At first it had some trouble with my 2GB card but I downloaded an updated firmware and that seemed to fix it.

Another unit that I have heard good things about on other forums is the PDX-70 by another company (google it). If I were buying again I think I would get that one as it was faster and may also have lasted longer on batteries from what I recall.

Chris :)