Does EXACTLY what its meant to do.Friday, April 29, 2005
..But for a price.
I own the Sony DSC-M1 Camera, a $600 camera with its own proprietary 'cradle'. This basically means that to transfer pictures to your PC, you need to:
Plug the AC Adapter into the wall, the other end into the Cradle. Plug a USB Cable from the Cradle to the PC. Slide the cradle-case open, connect the camera to it, slide it closed again, turn it on, and then you can transfer pictures.
Its not the most intuitive method, it gets tedious (Especially since my last SONY Camera, the DSC-P32, had a slot to connect it directly to the PC with a USB Cable, and a seperate Video out plug to connect that directly to a TV) but the M1 cradle does much more than allow USB Connectivity (It charges the camera battery as well as connects to a TV to view pictures on that)
It works great, but its a little complicated process since you have all sorts of wires, adapters, battery packs and such coming out of it, and if you're on a laptop, its just near impossible to transfer data if you're not near a wall outlet. Thats what I believe this product is intended for.
I'm only giving it 4 stars, because it is simply overpriced and should have been included with the camera, in my opinion. If you have a laptop that you plan to transfer pictures to, then go for it.
The other option would be to get a Memory Stick reader for it, which is just around the same price.