I received the package five days after ordering and paying 3$ shipping… from Hong Kong! That’s some pretty fast service. Inspecting the package, I was surprised that it included much more than I had thought.
This is one of the nicest product packages I have encountered. All the stuff you need is included, from a black carrying case, to wall charger, to usb cable, to small featured screwdriver, to a driver disk, to a nice quality box that keeps it’s contents well protected. And last but not least, I was very pleasantly surprised to find an AA battery pack. This means the Media Manager can be powered from the field for much longer than it’s standard proprietary battery using rechargable AA’s.. This is a huge plus for anyone interested in portable storage.** note – USBgeek no longer includes the battery pack. They now charge 5$ for it.

The size of the unit is fairly small, but not too small.

It’s chunky enough to get a hand around and feel comfortable doing so, although the case is made of soft plastic. It’s not something you can toss around, but you don’t have to baby it too much either. The DMM does not ship with a hard drive, you have to supply that yourself. This was our test system for the DMM:

Win2k
P4
Gigabyte motherboard

We used a 4200 rpm, 20 gig hard drive for the test. In a few weeks, we will be testing the DMM with a faster and larger hard drive, and updating the results. I’m sure the 4200 we used had an effect on the speed of the unit.**note – new test results with new, faster HD now available.

The manual with the DMM contained no English instructions, which I was surprised at. Thankfully, learning to operate the unit is as easy as can be. Hold and press the “power” button to fire the unit up, and press “copy” to transfer the contents of your media card. It’s not hard to miss, as those are the only two buttons on the DMM. The display is rather basic, telling you to insert a card if none exists, giving you a battery life indicator, and showing you a spinning disc while trasnferring. Also, storage on the SD, and available hard drive storage is also shown. The screen is large, bright and easy to use.

Hooking the DMM to the computer was very easy. It required no driver (although it does ship with a win98 driver). My win2k machine recognized it immediately, giving a drive letter to the DMM hard drive, the SD/XD card slot, and the CF slot. Everything flowed in a smooth fashion – no stutters, no hangs. The DMM is a true plug and play device for those on win2k and XP. My SD card worked just fine, proving that the DMM makes for an excellent multi card reader for your computer.** note – the Dooin seems to have trouble recognizing new , larger hard drives on some PC’s. This is because they are larger than 20 gb, and also because they need to be formatted in FAT file format. I had no issues with my computers recognizing the hard drive in the Dooin when it was using 6 gig and 20 gig *used* drives that were already formatted at some point in time. With my new 60gb Seagate drive, four computers ( two laptops and two desktops) could not see the hard drive in the Dooin. I needed to run Partition Magic to see the hard drive, and format it there. I was able to format the entire new drive in FAT 32, and the Dooin then had no problems using that drive, nor did my PC have problems seeing the new hard drive in the Dooin. Other users have reported no problems with new large hard drives in the Dooin. Fortunately, there is an easy solution to the problem. A great shareware program called “Swiss Knife” will allow you to format the entire drive in FAT 32, and allow any computer to see a new hard drive in the DMM. You can download it here: Swiss Knife.

Speed tests with new Seagate Momentus 60gb, 8mb cache, 5400 rpm drive(all at 1gb of data transferred):

Computer to DMM hard drive – 1:15

DMM hard drive to computer – 1:12

SD card to DMM – 3:39

SD card to computer from DMM – 3:11

Speed tests with 20 gig IBM Travesltar 4200 RPM.(all at 1 gb of data transferred):

Computer to DMM hard drive- 3:57min

DMM hard drive to computer – 1:47min

SD card to DMM – 5:47min

SD card to computer from DMM – 2:32min

Keep in mind that these tests were performed on a 4200 rpm hard drive. It is likely that a faster drive will increase results. Either way, it’s better to know a “worst case scenario” and go from there. For the price of the unit I was happy with the speed from SD to the DMM itself. Five+ minutes in the field at that price is a heck of a bargain. ** note. It’s clear the DMM prefers newer, faster hard drives. The SD to DMM performance was much faster on the new Seagate Momentus 5400 8mb cache. This is a fast unit when properly equipped!

Battery tests(based on 1 gig transfer):

I was able to get eleven 1 gig transfers from the unit before it shut itself off on the 12th attempt due to a low battery. I checked my SD card, and all the information was still there. I checked the various transfers for any corruption of data, and any possible other problems. There were no problems. It’s safe to say the DMM is very reliable. After checking gigs of transferred data, everything was rock solid, even the data on my SD card after the battery shut the unit off during a transfer. After the shutoff, I found an opportune time to try out the AA battery pack with my 2500 rechargable nihms. Once the batteries are in the black battery pack, you need to turn the pack to “on” via a small switch on the front panel. As soon as I plugged the battery pack into the DMM, it fired right up and gave me fifteen transfers with no signs of slowing down. The battery pack makes the DMM an even better bargain, ensuring hassle free power management in the field. This is very important for those who are using the new hybrid cams.
Inserting the hard drive into the DMM is quite easy. Simply remove the four smooth screw covers on the back of the unit, then use the screwdriver provided in the DMM package to undo the tiny screws. Pull the case apart, and insert the hard drive.

Conclusion

I am highly impressed with the DMM. It’s an inexpensive, but not cheap portable storage device. To me, it represents a “new reality” in PSD’s. They should be affordable, come with what you need, be reliable, and get the job done with minimal fuss. The DMM achieves that in all aspects.The battery pack is a life saver for your data while in the field – especially for outdoor photographers in more remote areas. I also found the LCD screen to be very easy to read, and it provided the information I needed. You cannot view your images on the DMM, nor can you review individual files that you have loaded onto the DMM. When it has loaded your data onto the unit, it treats each seperate transfer as it’s own folder, ensuring that it never overwrites already stored data. I transferred 1 gig of jpegs many times, and never lost files or replaced files. Everything was stored properly, as it should be.

You can safely kiss all those cables and slow/clunky PSD’s goodbye. The Dooin Media Manager is a winner.

You can purchase this device at USB Geeks.

Specs

Size :11.5 x 7.5 x 2.5 cm
480 Mbps transfer rate
fits 2.5 inch hard drives
2.25inch blue LCd display
3.7V/1200mAh Lithium-ion rechargeable battery
Windows XP/2000/ME/98SE, Mac OS 9.0 or above.
Weight : 153gm
Charging times: 3 hrs
Universal AC Power Adapter (100-240V)
2 hour internal battery life
supported memory cards: XD, SD, CF, mem stick, mem stick duo, mem stick pro(and duo),MMC, micro drive.

Package

Dooin Media Manager
USB cable
leather case
cd driver
user manual ( not in English)
AC Adapter (110-240V)
screwdriver
AA external battery pack (now optional)