Our competition exposed: Chinese Portable magnetic stripe readers.
This is only our initial finding. More to come.
The manufacturer of these products approached us to sell these products as
well. We test and review products before they are sold by this company. Look at
what we found and judge for yourself.
Chinese number 1
They say the Chinese #1 is smaller than the MSR400U/Mini400.
What do you think???
Chinese number 2
In the picture above on the left is the back of the
magnetic heads. Not attached very well to the case. The wiring is not
soldered well either. To support the solder joints hot glue was put on
to of the wiring. In hot weather conditions this glue melts, "we tried
it". This could cause the wires to short out.
On the right side of the
above picture, you can see the battery is soldered to the portable. The
consumer can not replace the battery if it fails. These batteries don't
come from Wal-mart or Radio Shack.
On the left is the MSR500M/Mini123. On the right is the
Chinese #2. The circuit board on the Chinese #2 is much larger and the
parts to be less efficient than the MSR500m. To most people this doesn't
make very much difference but we found that the Chinese #2 power consumption is
much higher causing the batteries not to last as long.