I must admit to being a fan of taking a fast laptop and witeblocker into the field. Partly due to cost and also partly due to the fact that you can't beat actually looking at the data (either for a preview or following an image to ensure that you have something readable etc). The growing sizes of hard drives combined with the sometimes impatient clients means that I am reseraching the one box solution (Hardcopy, Solo, etc) in a effort to speed up the process. But I am interested to know how these are used from a procedural point of view. Are you happy to trust that you have correctly captured a workable image or is it standard practice to then view the image (in Imager for example) to ensure that everything is as it should be. Perhaps I am getting too cautious in my old age but I would feel a little uneasy about trusting the box to work it's magic and leaving the premises (knowing I can never go back) without checking first to make sure everying is OK.
I never just trust "the box" (or any tool really), although my Talon and MD-5 provide verification of the success (and of course the hash), I still jump over to the laptop to verify. However I have never had an issue that was not immediately apparent, and I started with the Logicube products probably six or seven years ago. The most typical problem I have is right up front with the drive not being recognized by the Talon. Of course when that happens the MD-5 has always recognized the drive and performed the capture.
The Talon is fast. I use the "boxes" when I have to capture several drives in a short period of time. While it is capturing the next drive I can look at he finished drive(s).
I do not think age, or hopefully it is not just age, that makes one a cautious examiner. Of course age and experience tend to mean we have visited with Murphy more often. wink
I do both procedures pretty much 50/50 and always depending on the situation. The hand held duplicators are great but often you get more "tune-ablity" from the desktop screens.
Highly recommend checking the images after capture on the hand helds becasue it is very easy on the Solo-III for example to do a clone instead of a DD capture - one radio button away that needs to be checked everytime if used on multiple cases and investigators - verify settings twice; capture once.