Belkin F5U249E USB 2.0 15-in-1 Card Reader/Writer

When I first added the Belkin F5U249E to my system I was very pleased. It was immediately detected and 4 new "removable disks" appeared in "My Computer".

I inserted a CF card, and within seconds I had copied the best part of 512mb to my hard drive. Similary my daughter used it with the memory card from her Nokia phone. All seemed well until it got knocked off the desk onto the carpet.

The socket for the cable came completely away and was rattling about inside. I flipped open the casing, and there was no way it could be repaired. The socket had only been held in place by solder, and very fine solder at that. Too fine soldering for a DIY repair.

It's now in the electrical equipment recycling skip and I've now bought a Lexor multicard reader, which I hope is more robust.

To sum up, it worked really well until it was let down by weak design.