Card readers

Six speedy card readers that’ll supercharge your Canon image transfers to the max

There was a point not so long ago where the old card reader looked like it was becoming a niche product. Laptop and desktop computers almost entirely sported an SD slot, leaving only rarer card types requiring a separate reader. But in the last couple of years the drive towards super-slim laptops has meant the chop for the built-in SD slot on devices like the Macbook Pro.

Thankfully there’s no shortage of USB card readers. From budget-friendly and highly-portable options that are so small they resemble a flash drive, through to the desktop-based solutions that connect via a USB cable.

We’ve assembled six card readers, five of which boast a fast UHS-II SD slot. Many of our options also offer slots for other card types like Compactflash, Micro SD and Cfast, but in this test we’ll be primarily testing SD performance, due to the format’s current widespread use in photography.

To ensure each reader is tested to the max, we’ve benchmarked them with a top-class Toshiba Exceria Pro UHS-II SD card, and a Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I SD card. We’re also using a high-end computer equipped with a blazing-fast m.2 SSD and USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports that prevent any file transfer bottlenecks.