Considering how often I spend taking photos in the office as well as all of our photos when at events. I can say without a doubt that having to pull the SD card out of the camera, walk across the room and plug it into the PC, then sit down and pull everything off of the card takes up far more time than it should be. Eyefi has been on the market for a long time with their WiFi enabled cards but for various reasons I have always put off getting on. Recently I decided that we should check them out and finally see if they are worth all of the hype. So today we are going to take a look at their standard Eyefi Mobi in an 8GB capacity while using it for photos around the house and the office.

Product Name: Eyefi Mobi 8GB

Review Sample Provided by: Eyefi

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

Amazon Link: HERE

 

Specifications
Capacity 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB
WiFi 802.11b/g/n* compatible
WiFi Security WPA2 with a 10 character passphrase
Eyefi Cloud service Includes 90 day membership
Format SDHC
File Formats supported JPG and Video
System requirements for the mobile or PC apps

An Apple device running iOS 7.0 or later

An Android or Amazon Kindle device running Android 4.0.3 or later

A PC running Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 Pro with a Wi-Fi card, Microsoft .NET 3.5 Framework, 2 GB of RAM, and 20 MB available hard disk space

A Macintosh running OS X 10.10 or later with Wi-Fi capability, 2 GB of RAM, and 10 MB available hard disk space

 


Packaging

The packaging for the Eyefi Mobi doesn’t really have to much going on. You are basically getting two pieces of thick paper with plastic in between holding the SD card. The card is visible on the front inside of a photo of the water. Up to is the Eyefi branding and down at the bottom they explain what the Eyefi does with a photo of a camera with the WiFi icon and then a laptop, phone, and tablet all showing the same photo that is on the camera. On the back they talk a little more about the card and mobile apps as well as the Eyefi Cloud Service. It took me a minute to figure out how to get into the packaging but I was glad I took the time when I found the cut line in a very specific spot. Basically in the bottom half there is a plastic membership card with the setup information and then above it is the SD card, you have to cut in between to get to that card.

image 1

image 2

image 3

image 4

 


Photos, Setup, and Performance

From the outside, there isn’t anything about the Eyefi Mobi that will set it apart from any of the other SD cards except maybe its bright orange color. You have a standard lock switch along with the brand and capacity on the front. On the back there are a few of the standard required logos and if you look really closely you can actually see a serial number as well.

image 5

image 6

image 7

image 8

So in order to get everything setup you want to start by putting the Eyefi Mobi into your camera. For testing I am using a Cannon T3i but Eyefi does have a long list of cameras that are supported. Once I have the card installed we grab the device that we want to send the images too. To start I used our Nvidia Shield Tablet. Following the instructions on the included card you want to download the Eyefi Mobi app from the play store of for iOS devices the app store. Once installed the first thing it asks is for you to put in the activation code from the membership card. Once you do it will search for the card and connect the card to your device. Then you are all set to go off and take some photos.

On the T3i when the Eyefi Mobi is installed Cannon actually shows a wireless icon right on the screen. When you take a photo it will go from a semitransparent logo to a black logo, flashing as it transfers the image. This helps make sure it gets transferred before you turn your camera off. On the Eyefi Mobi app you will see the images you are taking start to show up in an album page. The images are sorted by the date they are taken. You can also go into the settings and have it full screen the images when they show up. This is a nice feature if you are still shooting, you can actually get a better look at the images than the relatively small screen.

app 1

There aren’t exactly a ton of options in the app but you can go in and turn on geo locations via the app and even set the folder that you want the app to store the images. If you sign up for an Eyefi Cloud account you can even have it automatically upload the images as you are taking them as well.

app 2

The app has a whole list of options for sharing the images once you have them in the album as well. This should make shooting a sneak peek image over to someone or posting it up on social media really easy as you are taking photos.

app 3

In addition to photos it will also send your video files. The card/app supports .mpg, .mov, .flv, .wmv, .avi, .mp4, .mts, .m4v, .3gp.

app 4

In addition to the mobile apps Eyefi does surprisingly support your PC as well with Windows and Mac programs. This is what I was most excited about, being able to transfer my images to mobile is nice, but to get them right onto my work computer was the goal. Sadly though the only way that you can sync the Eyefi Mobi to your PC is if you have a wireless adapter in it and if you use wireless for your internet connection you will have to lose your internet when you are syncing. Lucky for me I recently reviewed a USB 3.0 wireless adapter that I could hook up to my main PC. With that setup I installed the windows program. Just like the app the first thing you are asked is for the activation code. Once you get that entered a window down in the bottom right corner pops up letting you know you are connected. The window can be made smaller with the button in the top right corner if it is blocking anything.

windows 1

Basically almost all of the windows software runs off of an icon in your notification icons area.  From it you can option up your uploads folder, see recent transfers and even select more than one Eyefi card.

windows 4

The options page is a lot like the app as well. We can set the save location for both photos and videos. You can see all of the Eyefi cards activated to your computer and set them to auto connect. You also have access to the Eyefi Cloud, here you can even upload images that weren’t synced as well.

windows 2

When you are using the Eyefi Mobi and it sends files to your PC the window pops up and shows you the image being transferred. It’s not a huge photo but it is enough to know where you are in your file transfer.

windows 3

The Eyefi Mobi performed well when tested hooked directly up to my PC via USB 3.0. When transferring over wireless obviously things were slower but still good enough, especially given the size of the images our camera takes. The biggest slowdown is the time between taking a photo and getting the first photo transferred, when transferring more than one photo things speed up considerably.

stats

 


Overall and Final Verdict

Once I found my way into the packaging for the Eyefi Mobi I was surprised at just how easy it was to get everything setup. The card worked right away with our Canon T3i and they made it easy to setup with a simple app or PC program and the activation code on the included card. Once setup though it is very cool to see your images and videos shoot right over to your mobile device or PC, especially when thinking about how they packed the wireless into a tiny card. The mobile app and program are simple, but right to the point. On mobile they make it easy to use the app to share and upload your images.

The Eyefi Mobi isn’t perfect though. For starters if you have a tablet and a laptop that you plan on using with it. You won’t actually be able to transfer your images and videos to both. Once the file is transferred to one device it is marked and won’t transfer automatically when you reconnect to the other. Also If you take images in RAW it’s not going transfer them as well. I think the biggest thing is the issue of transferring files to your laptop when you use wireless to connect to the internet. In order for the program to sync with the card it does have to disconnect you. Also in the case of the specific card they sent, the 8 gig capacity can fill up in no time, especially when you aren’t plugging it into your PC daily and pulling files off of it.It does look like they have fixed most of those issues with the Eyefi Mobi Pro though, hopefully we will be able to give that a look in the future as well to confirm.

So is the Eyefi Mobi something you should consider? Well if you take a lot of photos and are lazy like me and what quicker access to them it is a great device/card. It does have some limitations but most are easy to work around. The biggest issue is when shopping for an SD card it is kind of hard to put a $6 8Gig card next to one that costs seven times as much. But I do think that price is justified given the features it does add. Just think, you could take photos and later when you go to get on your computer to edit them they are already there waiting for you! So I do recommend the Eyefi Mobi but I do think it has the potential to be even better.

fv4recommended

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

Log in to comment

garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #36728 19 Jun 2015 17:45
Today I take a look at an Eyefi Mobi that lets me wirelessly sync my photos to my PC or mobile device as I'm taking photos. Check it out

We have 2083 guests and no members online

supportus