Five In One Dongle For iPad 2 Gives You An SD Card Port

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It’s funny, but just a few weeks ago I remember kicking up a fit that the iPad 2 had no SD card slot. A lot of people had noticed that particular lack, too, along with some similar lacks. Now, a new item has arrived that’s going to offer what the iPad 2 lacked–it’s a five in one dongle that plugs right into the standard Apple Connector port and gives you a whole lot of new ports in return.

It’s pretty simple stuff; the dongle gives you an interesting tradeoff between the Apple Connector port and a respectable five new ones in exchange. Plugging in this dongle will give you an SD card slot, a MicroSD card slot, an HDMI port, a USB port, and a mini USB port to boot.

There are, however, some downsides here. First, though it’s usable on both the iPad 2 and the original iPad, you’ll need to be running one of three specific firmware versions to use it, specifically, 4.1.0, 4.2.1, or 4.3. Further, you can’t plug anything in to more than one of those ports at the same time, preventing you from using a PC keyboard in the USB slot and then checking the contents of an SD card at the same time. And for those of you who thought you’d use this as a media player from your USB hard drive to your new HD television, well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that’s just not going to happen.

Not exactly user friendly, I’d say, and the fact that you’d need to shell out fully $44.99 to get one of these dongles is almost adding insult to injury, but still, if you’re looking to get more utility out of your iPad or iPad 2, and you don’t mind tacking on a lump of plastic, then you’ll probably be wanting to check out that five in one dongle yourself.