SeCro USB 3.0 Card Reader Review

Ever since my laptop's internal card reader stopped working, I was thinking of buying a card reader. My initial choice was one of those Transcend card readers. But then I found this product with a good price tag and good reviews. I was not wrong. This is a reasonably well built USB 3.0 card reader that delivers the claimed speeds.

• Product Name : SeCro USB 3.0 Card Reader
• Item Description : SD/SDHC/SDXC/Micro SD card reader.
• Manufacturer : SeCro (Rebranded Chinese product)
• Price : Rs.400
• Colors : Black and White
• Country of Origin : China
• Manufacturer Website : www.secro.in

• SD Slot : SD/SDHC/SDXC/Micro SD with adapter
• USB Version : 3.0
• Maximum Speed : 5Gbps
• Input Voltage : 5V
• Input Current : 100-500mA
• Warranty : 1 year limited

• 1 x SeCro USB 3.0 card reader

• Good quality build. Please don't expect it survive a nuclear explosion, but the plastic used is of good quality and well integrated.
• Offers USB 3.0 speeds.
• Comes with detachable caps on both ends that are symmetric.
• USB connector has additional 5 pins.
• You can retain a full SD card inside and put the cap on; handy.

• You're going to lose those caps sooner or later.
• The micro SD and SD card slots don't have any latch mechanism inside. So don't push the cards, especially the micro SD one too much because you might break your card.

I tested this card with my Strontium Nitro 32GB. I know that's not the fastest card out there to test the USB 3.0 bandwidth, but that's what I had. Read speeds are as follows,

USB 2.0 Average read speed = 20 MBps
USB 3.0 Average read speed = 90 MBps

Please note that these speeds are highly dependent on the card I was using. So expect it to deliver your card's read and write speeds when you test it. Below are some test screenshots.

This is just another cheap rebranded Chinese product. You will find the same product with different branding all over Amazon. I bought this for Rs.450 from Amazon India. That's a bit high but the product still functions without any problems so far. So I'm okay with it. I read many bad reviews on Amazon that the card reader failed to work after a few weeks or months. Buying these Chinese no-name items is a test of your luck; sometimes the product works and sometimes not. If you want promised speeds and ready to spend some more money, go for brands like Transcend or Sony.