SDHC: buy a reader vs. return it?
 

I (mistakenly?) bought a 4GB SDHC card instead of the 4GB SD cards I had been using. The Sanyo HD1, with the new firmware, appears to read both kinds of cards just fine; but nothing else does!

I could return the card, but I am afraid that more and more 4GB SD cards will actually be SDHC. I think that maybe I should just buy a reader. Anyone have any recommendations for a simple, small SDHC reader that works reliably?

What gets me angriest about this new SDHC format is that, for 4GB, it is obviously totally unnecessary. I have plenty of devices and readers of all kinds that handle a 4GB SD card just fine. Perhaps 8GB requires SDHC, but I don't see those sold for a reasonable price yet anyway.

Frankly, I did not pay much attention to the SDHC debate, because I simply could not even imagine the flash card companies being so idiotic as to bring yet another, totally incompatible format when they didn't even have to.

By the way, I cannot use a USB cable on my HD1 because I have never gotten that to work properly. Windows XP initially seems to recognize the HD1 as a USB drive, but then says that it did not behave properly. So I need a reader. Have other people been able to get a USB cable to work on the HD1?

In your particular case I would return the card and get a regular SD card.. there'll be 4GB SD cards available for a while yet!

However, I would try and sort out the USB problem. You should have the pleasure of just sitting the camera down in the nice docking station. I haven't had trouble with that at all, thankfully.

Transfer speed via USB cable hasn't been nearly as good for me as a reader. I have an external USB 2.0 reader I've been using for some time. $8 very well spent dollars. I drop a card into the reader and a fresh one in the cam. While my image is transferring, the cam is back to recording. Given the space limitation of my cards, it's been a good compromise.

I too recommend you return your SDHC and get a standard format 4GB. There's no advantage to the new format for 4GB and compatibility is lower.