Android tablets + USB memory card support question

Does anyone have any experience with connecting USB memory card reader to Android tablet for file copy / management?

do you have a specific tablet in mind?

I've got an Asus Transformer Prime tablet that I regularly use to transfer my 7D and 5D2 mem cards to an external hard drive. The transformer prime has a keyboard dock that is extremely good that has a single usb port that you can put a hub on. the tablet itself, i'm not sure if there is a dongle or something like the Ipad does, so i cant say for sure. The keyboard attachment for the tablet allows it to become a netbook with a mobile OS.

Any "tablet only" units would need a dongle to fit in its data port. Even then, you'd only be able to transfer your shots to the tablet. Most tablets have very little storage for that kind of thing, so its not an ideal method for uploading your images. The Asus Transformer, and the Transformer Prime, are the only two models of tablet that I know of that have an actual usb port, where you can tranfer files directly to external storage.

I was considering Samsung Galaxy Tab but Transformer Prime was in those that I reviewed. So you can connect a USB card reader even without using the dock?

no, you cant connect a usb card reader to any tablet that I know of, unless it has a usb dongle. Which i've never seen, but I havn't looked either. The Asus Transformer Prime only "really" shines when you actually "have" the dock. Its not your standard dock though. Once you have the keyboard attached, you can't tell at all that it isn't a permanent piece of the unit.

I had some guys here at work play around with it for a while, loving a netbook with a touch screen. They had no idea that it wasn't a netbook, but a tablet with a keyboard dock.

The dock is the piece with the USB port, so you'd definitely have to have it attached to run anything usb.

Can of worms.

You need a device with USB host support. Can of worms in it's own right. As a rule of thumb, if it runs DSLR controller it has USB host support.

You need Android 4.02 or higher (IIRC).

You need to be root. Then you can download an app that does the mounting of the filesystem, kinda mostly, theoretically. Lots of things can go wrong.

Might be easier to play tricks with an eye-fi card.

You get a connection kit for most devices and for the Galaxy Tab there is a kit and you just need the Host cable. In fact i connect thumb drives just fine to my Galaxy Note which is not rooted and runs GB. I plug in the OTG cable then connect a Corsair Voyager and the only thing is your flash drive needs to be formatted as FAT32 rather then NTFS. If you going to get a tab i would wait for the new Galaxy Note 10.1 that should be shipping with Photoshop touch goodness baked in.

http://www.amazon.com …-10-1-10-v/dp/B005O252GG/

You can not use this as a pass-through though, correct? i.e. you can not attach an external HD to one USB prot on the Transformer, and a CF card to the other fullsize USB port as far as what I have been told. It can access only one external storage device...unless ICS has changed that. I had Best Buy try this out for me when I was looking at the Transformer (because it did have two full size USB ports) and it was a no go. It could access the CF card alone in either port or the external HD alone in either port but no together. I hope this has been changed or will be in the near future because I am itching to get one of these and do away with a laptop while on travel.

Tzetsin wrote in post #14230797
do you have a specific tablet in mind?

I've got an Asus Transformer Prime tablet that I regularly use to transfer my 7D and 5D2 mem cards to an external hard drive. The transformer prime has a keyboard dock that is extremely good that has a single usb port that you can put a hub on. the tablet itself, i'm not sure if there is a dongle or something like the Ipad does, so i cant say for sure. The keyboard attachment for the tablet allows it to become a netbook with a mobile OS.

Any "tablet only" units would need a dongle to fit in its data port. Even then, you'd only be able to transfer your shots to the tablet. Most tablets have very little storage for that kind of thing, so its not an ideal method for uploading your images. The Asus Transformer, and the Transformer Prime, are the only two models of tablet that I know of that have an actual usb port, where you can tranfer files directly to external storage.

isoMorphic wrote in post #14236049
You get a connection kit for most devices and for the Galaxy Tab there is a kit and you just need the Host cable. In fact i connect thumb drives just fine to my Galaxy Note which is not rooted and runs GB. I plug in the OTG cable then connect a Corsair Voyager and the only thing is your flash drive needs to be formatted as FAT32 rather then NTFS. If you going to get a tab i would wait for the new Galaxy Note 10.1 that should be shipping with Photoshop touch goodness baked in.

http://www.amazon.com …-10-1-10-v/dp/B005O252GG/

I use the one on the right with a Galaxy Tab 10.1 when running DSLR Controller. I don't think it does passthrough, but I never tried. I use it often for data transfer with a thumb drive .

Thanks guys. I will wait until some new tablets get released, maybe Note. I dont think any tablet out now runs 4.0.2, not all of them even running 4.0