Manufacturer: Canon
Model: M30 portable storage unit
Price: £320
www.canon.co.uk

With DSLRs climbing higher and higher up the megapixel ladder, portable storage units are more necessary than ever. Canon’s M30 is the smaller of the company’s two offerings, with 30GB of disk space on-board and a 3.7 inch LCD screen that boasts an impressive 307,000 pixel resolution.

Support for JPEG, TIFF and Canon’s proprietary Raw format is offered, while an assortment of MP3, MPEG and WAV formats handle the multimedia side of things. Slots are also provided for CompactFlash and SD media, while PictBridge technology means that direct printing is also possible.

Representing Canon’s first steps in the field, it’s perhaps not surprising that the unit’s performance is a bit of a disappointment, with operating times, in general, being particularly slow.

Its magnesium alloy construction is undoubtedly tough, although Canon’s reluctance to rubberise any of the unit past the grip makes overall handling not quite as comfortable as on its more refined competitors.

Verdict:
The unit doesn’t represent very good
value, at over £300, Epson and Vosonic offer a better
capacity-to-outlay ratio and wider support for other file formats.

Pros:
Great LCD screen, construction

Cons:
Expensive, handling, slow transfer speeds

What Digital Camera Score: 77%