Eye-Fi Pro X2 8

Eye Fi Pro X2 Wireless SDHC Memory Card what could happen if your photos and videos could instantly fly from your camera to your smartphone, tablet or computer? Just think: no more hunting around for the camera cable or having to take the memory card out of your camera and put it into your computer. How? With the Eye Fi Pro X2 Wireless SDHC Memory Card. It does all the work for you.

91 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars , a Class six SDHC card from Eye Fi!, April 4, 2010
By Nimravus (California) See all my reviews This review is from: Eye Fi Pro X2 eight GB Class six SDHC Wireless Flash Memory Card EYE FI 8PC (Electronics) 1st off, there are some number of different Eye Fi models so I propose you get the one with the features you need. The “X2″ models now have the Class six ranking which is great news for fast D SLR’s with high megapixels (18+, etc) or taking 1080p HD video to ensure the data move rate can keep up with the recording.

The X2 adds the Class six ranking, 802.11 b/g/n capability and endless memory. All of which were big concerns with the older models when using them in modern D SLRs.

I chose this one because the X2 Pro offers RAW image transfers and Ad hoc mode. If you don’t take pictures in RAW format or don’t care to move directly from Camera to Laptop via WiFi, then get the X2 Explore for $50 cheaper.

Setup is a breeze. When you 1st put the card into the computer, it’ll ask if you want to install the software. You may be able to use the web established settings manager if you don’t want to install any software. I chose to install the Eye Fi Manager software. Working.

The 1st thing it’ll ask you to do is to choose a network to connect to. I chose mine at home and configured the WPA2 security in seconds.. it connected and asked me to put the card into my camera and take a test picture.

I did so and withing seconds, my T2i’s display showed that the eye fi has been connected and transferring data. The computer software system tray icon lit up and confirmed this too.

I took an 18mp picture for the test which turned out to be about 22mb RAW and 7mb jpeg. It finished the move quickly.

There are many custom features you may be able to set to tell it what to do with the pictures. I have mine set to move to my HDD and MobileMe account. There are about 25 online services you may be able to automatically upload to.

I do like the fact that you may set it to upload to a “private” album so it isn’t automatically “shared”.

You can add many cards to one account and manage them all through the software. I now have three Eye Fi cards (2 x 8GB X2 Pro for my D SLR and one x 8GB X2 Explore for my point and shoot).

You can configure each card individually to deliver the pictures where you could like them.

I recommend this card.

UPDATE: I have been using this card all day today and through some number of battery cycles. There’s a important drop in battery life while using this card, which is understandable because it’s transmitting via WiFi.

I am using the Canon T2i and the camera has an Eye Fi menu inside which I can disable the WiFi. The battery does last longer when I shut off the Eye Fi card (WiFi). So something to think about, maybe get a spare battery or get a camera with Eye Fi menu support.

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93 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of five stars Great hardware, but the software needs basic help, April 19, 2010
By Chris Zee Shutterbug (Baton Rouge La) See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) This review is from: Eye Fi Pro X2 eight GB Class six SDHC Wireless Flash Memory Card EYE FI 8PC (Electronics)
Buyer review from the Vine™ Program () Here is my experience. Harware five stars, software two stars. Average 3.5.
Installation file is 21 meg, hardly what I could describe as a compact file (per the manual). Installation offers updates to both software and hardware(firmware) Software is 3.0.20 variant, was 3.0.16. You also must then also let Adobe Air Installer to access your computer, for non personal data only. Not quite sure what that does, maybe the web established geotagging. Then the SD card updated its firmware from 4.1010 to 4.1012. As installed the software is twelve meg total on a WinXP PC. Took 17 minutes. Reasonable.

Now taking pictures! It takes about five seconds for a 850 meg seven mpixel photo upload. This was at about 50 ft distance from my N router. Right after the picture is taken it appears on the screen. By the time I took my test pictures outdoors and ran back inside to look, they were all there. Software lets to upload to any directory, but defaults to My Documents/ Pictures. Eye Fi helper software which does all this housekeeping can run in auto mode or you may be able to manually start it. Geotagging works great, when you click on the thumbnail it shows a small Google map with the place of your photo. Again this function is reliant on a Sky Hook recognized wi fi mac address hardware being in the surrounding area of your card when the photo is taken. I loved everything so far. But..

Glitch one. And a bad one. Bad or test pictures are forever. A total of ten photos taken generated a one meg log file, a eight meg dated photo directory, a copy “spool” directory of full size photos, and a cache directory with thumbnail snaps. Tons of overhead. Shouldn’t be a problem to clean up. Wrong. Deleting the cache directory manually per the web established help file still kept a “palm tree” blank cache image in the eye fi browser, with a now non existent file name below it. Why is this not a part of the software. I’m now littered with palm tree thumbnails for all the pictures I took as a test and deleted. Why? And why a copy “spool” directory after the data move was completed?

There are lots of postings on the Eye Fi web forum site about this being an issue dating back to 2009, but between using eye fi helper, eye fi manager ? (web established extra software I had to add), and eye fi center I still couldn’t find the elusive “delete upload history” button. It’s supposed to be the answer. Looks like a common problem. So far, get this, the solution is to delete your account with Eye Fi, , then create a new one. I delete about half the pictures I take every time I shoot, and I have to do this every time???

So the hardware works great, after a short software installation. But the software is missing important parts. So this is only a 3.5 star review. I’ll upgrade it if, and when Eye Fi improves their photo manager software, or simply lets it to do the simple task of wireless move with geo cache data added.

Updated 4/23 If you check my comments file you’ll see that the Eye Fi people were kind to react to my concerns and offer many extra help. Once the ideas are incorporated into the real software (as promised) so other don’t have to struggle, I’ll up the software score. My suggestion is alike to what other software vendors use. Have a “simple” interface and an “expert” interface, such that the user can choose what level of control to exercise over the software. As an example when on the road, without wi fi, the capability of turning off the cards’ tries to communicate needlessly and hence conserve battery power. Many newer cameras like Canon T1i (T2i?) can do this in camera menu.

Update 5/2 The software is up to variant 3.1.2 and the delete local thumbnails is easy to find. After I hit that button, the spool file also looks to be gone. Many quirkiness in using the thumbnails to see the place on a small Google map clicking next appears to mix up the program if all the pictures aren’t uploaded still. Today I used the supplied USB dongle to move the pictures (it still uses Wi Fi, could have thought that it could detect that its plugged in and use the USB). Took about five min for 40 7mp one mb shots. Geotagging error just driving around town is comparatively small, about 200 yards. Interestingly enough, the pictures that stay on the card aren’t geotagged, only the ones that were moved wirelessly are tagged, so don’t overwrite the tagged auto shots by a manual move into the same directory, as file names are the same.

Update 5/12 though not suggested by Eye Fi many users used a SD/SDHC to CF adapter to use the Eye Fi with their DSLRs that only take CF cards. This was usually sucessful with the last Eye Fi cards. Unfortunately neither I nor anybody else that I have seen was able to use the 8Gb X2 cards with the adapters. Surely not in Canon cameras.

Update 5/29 I just have gotten a Fuji XP10 waterproof camera. It has a metal body, but it still manages to move pictures to the computer wirelessly at up to 25 ft from a router. The card isn’t totally matched though. The second you hit playback on the camera, you get a card error. The only way to recover is to format the card in the camera, which means you could have lost all the pictures taken up to that point if on the road. So don’t assume that because the camera and the card are both SDHC that they’ll play nice together. Check the EyeFi website.

Update 11/27 still another firmware update to 4.2120. The web site warns that if you’re running variant 4.1XXX then you may get an error message and have to retry. Well I runned variant 4.2001 previous to the update. And I got the error. It’s somewhat funny, starts with “Breathe in..” Reinserted the card per the information, this did nothing, you must re put the whole Eye Fi adapter. This time it offered to update current 4.2120 to a “new” 4.2120. Supposedly the standby power intake is considerably less.

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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars X2 PRO CARD DELIVERS!!, April 6, 2010
By Derek Hallett “Derek” (San Francisco, CA) See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This review is from: Eye Fi Pro X2 eight GB Class six SDHC Wireless Flash Memory Card EYE FI 8PC (Electronics) I have been using many eye fi cards with the Canon T2i. As mentioned above, this camera comes standard with eye fi firmware built into the camera. Eye fi partnered with many camera manufacturers it looks to bring this functionality into the Camera. My experience with the eye fi card evolved from the 4GB Pro Card to the last X2 Pro 8GB Card. Many of the direct benefits you’ll find with the new eye fi card class six series, are the faster upload speeds via the wi fi connectivity. The X2 Pro card will upload my 18MP photos in less then 15 seconds. The increase in upload speeds is amazing and i find the value with this card in its easy photo management. Previous to owning these cards taking photos was a annoyance caused by the extra work involved in uploading and pushing the photos to an online web site. With the original eye fi Pro card, it took care of the initial problem. With the new eye fi Pro X2 I’m taking more photos and at a higher quality. With the increased sized of storage space and increased upload speeds, I have endless photo taking opportunities. The issue of running out of storage space is not a concern. I can simply delete the photos from the camera that have already uploaded through the wi fi. Many may ask well how do you know when the photos finished uploading? With the fitted firm ware, eye fi communicates with the Canon firmware to show you that data move is occurring. Once the wireless icon stops moving, you know your photos finished uploading.

Moving on to the new photo management utility. Eye fi has effectively updated their photo management, moving the user friendly interface from an online client to a desktop utility. I find this useful because it removes the have to access the web. Everything is done directly on the host computer. The new utility makes it easier to manage many eye fi cards also as any iphone connections you may have.

Overall I greatly recommend this product for its easy use, easy photo management, blazing fast uploads, and eliminating the have to manually upload photos. I can just shoot away and not worry about the have to go upload my photos afterward. I put my camera down and pick it up ten minutes afterward prepared to go.

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