Eye-Fi Pro X2 review
By Chris Ziegler 
posted April 30th 2010 5:35PM
posted April 30th 2010 5:35PM
Using an Eye-Fi card involves installing a menu extra / notification icon (for Mac or Windows, respectively) on your machine that gives you access to the requisite management software and lets you get a glimpse of newly-uploaded photos as they roll in. Having previously used a Pro, we already had the company's Eye-Fi Manager software installed on our machine when we stuck the Pro X2 into the slot (you don't need to use the included USB-to-SD adapter, by the way -- our MacBook Pro's reader worked just fine). Though the software recognized the card and popped open the web-based Eye-Fi portal, we were immediately told that we needed to install Eye-Fi Center to continue, a thicker, Adobe Air-based client that requires local installation. We would've preferred to continue using Manager ourselves, but it's not that big of a deal. Interestingly, we accidentally gummed up the works when we upgraded to (and subsequently killed) Adobe's Gala preview release of Flash 10.1; the menu extra would load just fine, but trying to open Center would result in... well, nothing. Ultimately, we fixed it with a ground-up reinstall.
We found Eye-Fi Center to be a serviceable app that's no more complicated than it needs to be -- it just gets the job done, and it does so pretty intuitively. If you own multiple Eye-Fi cards, you can manage them separately from the list at the left of the window. You can tell which card (if any) is currently connected and eject it, but more interestingly, you'll find a little gear icon that grants you access to the card's full suite of options; this is where you decide exactly how your upload workflow behaves, and it's very configurable. Most of these options have been around since Eye-Fi's early days, though, so let's concentrate on what's new here: Endless Memory mode, specifically, a feature that is shared by all the X2-class cards in Eye-Fi's lineup. Off by default, the feature allows you to configure the card to automatically delete old pictures and videos once they've been successfully uploaded, and you can set it to kick in when anywhere between 10 and 90 percent of the card has been filled. The brilliance of the feature is pretty amazing, and it'd be perfect to take on a trip when you don't have a laptop handy to offload pictures to as you go -- especially combined with the card's support to automatically connect to open and AT&T hotspots. We found that it worked as advertised.
So what about the Pro X2's other new features over the older Pro? We tested the card with a Panasonic GF-1, and we weren't able to discern any perceptible difference in write performance using the newer card's Class 6 support; that's not to say it wasn't physically writing faster, but the camera's buffer seemed to protect us from noticing it. Ditto with 802.11n support -- connected to 802.11g with the old card at home, uploads were already happening as quickly as we could run over to the computer to check them, so we don't really need any marginal boost in performance that 2.4GHz-only 802.11n might provide. Your mileage certainly may vary here, but don't expect miracles.
Though the Eye-Fi Pro series supports (and has supported for a while) ad hoc wireless networks, it's not a feature we'd rely on -- it feels like a hacky capability, and we were never able to get it to work properly with our MacBook Pro. The most straightforward way to configure it is to set up the network on your machine, plug in the card, and select the network to add to the card's list of stored network configurations, but even after following all those steps (and letting Eye-Fi Center verify the configuration), nothing was uploading for us after shooting a couple test photos and waiting several minutes. It's possible that they would've eventually started transferring, but if you have to wait, say, ten or even five minutes for the card to connect, the feature is rendered pretty useless as far as we're concerned.
Wrap-up
We've always loved the concept of what Eye-Fi's trying to do, and the Pro X2 unquestionably represents the most complete and capable execution of that concept to date. Endless Memory is a fabulous addition to the X2 line that we love, but ironically, it's not as necessary now that the card has gained an additional 4GB of storage versus the older Pro model. If you've already got a Pro and you find that you've got a serviceable way to manage the 4GB that you have, the X2 probably isn't worth the $150 hole in your bank account -- and if you're new to the world of Eye-Fi and you don't really need wireless RAW uploads, the Explore X2 might be a better choice for $50 less. Either way, though, an Eye-Fi of one sort or another will make a pretty sweet addition to your camera kit.
@deej http://support.eye.fi/product-info/camera-compatability/compatibility/known-issues-with-compact-flash-card-adapters/
From that link: The Eye-Fi Card will not work in Canon 20D, 30D and 40D cameras when used with an “SD/MMC” CF adapter. Use of the newer “SD/SDHC” CF adapters appear to work with the Eye-Fi Card in these cameras.
They then link to this article from PhotoJojo about how updating the firmware of the camera may help: http://uncut.photojojo.com//2008/06/14/eye-fi-canon-20d-30d-40d/
This still may not be a solution for you but at least it's something.
@FreeRange Yeah, been there, done all of that. Still doesn't work, unfortunately.
It seems odd to me that the folks at Eye-Fi don't cater to people with pro-level cameras. There's a lot more money to be made in the pro world.
@deej
Same here. I also found out that even if the Pro X2 did work, Eye-Fi says on its website that the Pro X2 (or any of its products) will NOT geotag RAW files. That little but critical piece of information is buried somewhere in its website.
@FreeRange
Actually, even SDHC adapters will not work with the Eye-Fi X2 cards in a Canon. I tried it myself. Eye-fi's website is misleading.
no fragmentation issues with the auto delete option? can this run in my cx-7 hdv camera?
Will it stream?
That is, can I use this to create a wireless webcam for use with Skype?
@Zhuzhu No streaming. Uploads are somewhat delayed too.
@Zhuzhu I was wondering that! Wireless streaming would be very, very cool. Less expensive (well free) than 3G Video calling and more reliable over 802.11.
Logitech, I think, tried to do a wireless streaming camera once. Details are hazy because it was ages ago.
if you really need that..... you should consider buying a new device
@jediknight999 ok i didnt read the ad-hoc part .... my bad
What about the geotagging feature? I know it relies on WiFi signals to get it's position. How accurate did that turn out to be?
@Bones13 If you're in a urban/suburban area with a decent number of access points around it works fine. In the middle of nowhere the feature is worthless.
I'd like to see an iPad app for this! That would let you put your photos into iPhoto directly, and make them available for editing in the iPad apps.
@Eli Haj, you can buy the Eye-Fi Connect X2 for $50. You can pick the right card for you using our comparison chart at http://www.eye.fi/products/compare-cards