Portable Innovation Technology PIT MemPlug SmartMedia Adaptor Memory Card Springboard Module

Basically, if you buy this, spend the extra money and buy a smart media reader for your pc. Then you can copy palm apps and documents directly to your smart media card, and thus the memplug.

It /does/ run apps directly from the memplug, using the recently released PiDirect. PiDirect is being sold seperately from their website for 19.99, but i think its 9.99 until october 1st 2001. It is worth every penny. It is also supported by Launcher III, which has a feature that will copy a program from the memplug and run it automatically. It's not as nice as PiDirect, but it's free.

I currently keep almost all my non-essential apps (read games, gizmos, etc) on the memplug, along with tons and tons of doc files and several pictures.

Like I said above, it introduces some file handling to the visor, and if you don't know what that means, this may not be for you. But if you are willing to put up with a little bit of file handling, you will find out how much fun it really is to have 40 megabytes of eBook with you at all times, and still 4mb free on your internal memory. :)

Highly reccommended.


Works well - with a few hiccups.   August 14, 2001
G. Ned Christensen (Seattle, WA)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

I wanted to load up my Visor with a bunch of books and my 8 MB memory module was full. The MemPlug for SmartMedia seemed like a good choice. I did not buy the SmartMedia card bundled with it, but looked for a better deal, as the cards are available everywhere... I downloaded the PI Direct for the ability to store applications on the SmartMedia. I had trouble creating directories and subdirectories, as I do not work in a computer related field and it was foreign to me. Portable Inovation's tech support by email responded promptly and after 3 or 4 emails I got it figured out. I then had a problem when I was moving files around and accidently put a copy of my Datebook Plus on the memory card. It caused me to get a warning that my memory was full, and then it would cause a soft-reset crash. I couldn't figure it, out so I emailed tech support again and they called me on the phone from Hong Kong, diagnosed the problem, and got me going again. That is pretty impressive tech support in my book. I have LOTS of applications, many photos, and more than 30 books and I still have more than 30 MB to spare. That is pretty amazing. I have only had the product about 3 weeks, but I am impressed so far, and would recommend it.


MemPlug SM Adapter (March 26 2001 Build)   April 7, 2001
Disco Funk Luva (Bay City, MI United States)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

I'm using MemPlug in a Visor Platinum with 4MB, 8MB, 32MB, and 64MB Smart Media(SM) memory.

Cool product but a bit disappointed by the reduction in image size (postage stamp) without anyway to tune the handheld-side software to resize pictures to 'fit' the screen=[ Useless as far as going from straight camera to Visor for displaying purposes.

The PiBackup and PiMover utils are SWEET! Helpful labeled tabs identify internal and SM card memory and how much of each is being used. Moving files was fairly easy and the first full backup ran approx. one MB a minute.

Word to the wise- PiBackup & PiRestore features are a one button operation (Full backup / Full restore). If you want one file (or a few) backed up or restored you have to use PiMover;-)

gMovie Maker is cute but my practical side says this feature will be highy over rated and massively under used.


Bad With Visor Deluxe   February 10, 2002
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

The MemPlug may work just fine, with other visor models, but it needs Palm OS 3.5 if you want to run app's or access files directly from the module. The Visor Deluxe comes with Palm OS 3.1. You can still store stuff on the card, but you have to move apps or files back to RAM any time you want to use them. It makes retrieving data a slow and cumbersom process.


Almost an essential for all Handspring users   March 30, 2003
Timothy Meier (Bakersfield, CA USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

After having my Handspring Visor Neo for a few months, I started to run out of space in the internal RAM. So I finally bought the MemPlug SmartMedia adapter and a 64 Meg card. Now almost all of my memory woes are finally gone.

The Memplug adapter fits into the springboard slot in the back of the unit. At most it adds about an ounce or two to the units total weight. It comes with several applications already loaded on the unit, including a file mover, photo application, and document reader. The document reader, CSpotRun, can access files that are stored on the memory card. This is what really sold me on the device. Since I like to carry around e-books on my Handspring, this will allow me to have more than two or three books available at any point in time.

One of the things that annoyed me about this device is the amount time that the applications that access the memory card take to load up. I understand this is probably because it is loading the file into memory. While it doesn't take that long, it is still annoying.

I also had one other minor problem. When I first started using the card it seemed to act strange at times. After a quick visit to the company's website, I downloaded a new driver for the unit and that cleared up everything.

In closing, the MemPlug SmartMedia adaptor is something that should be on the buy list for all Handspring users. It works well and does what it says. For the price, the ability to increase the memory available to your handheld is well worth it.