Memory-Card Reviews

I have a 32 MB Sandisk Compact Flash card for my Nikon Coolpix 950, a 2-megapixel digital cam. This card will allow you to record about 50 pictures at the standard (640x480) resolution, so if you find you're not a 'power user' of your camera, it should be plenty - and the dollars-to-megabyte ratio is right!

However, if you regularly shoot at higher resolutions such as 1600x1200 (i.e. 8" x 10" photo quality), you won't be able to fit 20 photos on this card. In that event, you might want to think about going for their 96MB card (also available from Amazon!)

With this size card you might also want to think about going for Sandisk's inexpensive USB card reader - it's up to 50x as fast and a lot less hassle than hooking the camera up to the computer!

At 1024 x 768 resolution, this memory card holds 200-390 images on my Polaroid PDC-700 camera (that's like 8-16 rolls of film). The price and capacity are just right for weekend trips or special events. **Go crazy** and take pictures of anything and everything that catches your eye!

I took 89 pictures in 5 hours at my company's "Relay for Life" event on Friday, and really enjoyed not having to "budget" my photos or worry about running out of film. The image quality was excellent, and downloading was quick & easy with a digital film reader.

I'm planning a 2-week trip to Spain this fall, and am considering an additional 32MB SanDisk memory card just in case I get **Too Crazy**. Does anyone know if they make a storage case for spare memory cards?

Unless you carry a notebook computer to constantly dump your digital camera images to, you will likely have noticed that the memory card that came with your digital camera fills up rather quickly, especially at higher resolutions. Why camera companies are unwilling to shell out the extra few dollars for larger capacity cards to include with their products is a mystery of marketing, but the fact that the dinky 4, 8 and 16 MB cards fill up with photos of family and adventures rather quickly. That's why this little card is such a gem.

32MB is a good compromise in the size/cost ratio, although the 48MB and 64MB cards are also a good deal. The Sandisk brand is a relative unknown to the consumer -- at least under that name. Sandisk supposedly makes memory cards and sells them directly to the camera manufacturers, so chances are the card that came with your camera is made by them. As far as reliability goes, the memory works just as well and holds just as much as better known name brands which cost tens of dollars more.

All in all, the Sandisk memory is a good product at a good price, and it will make your digital picture taking so much more enjoyable as you forget about having to pace yourself concerning the amount of photos you take!

Purchased about 3 weeks ago and have used it alot. I liked the keys on the bottom of the unit, you can use them and see the screen at the same time. The detail is nice but it requires you to purchase an 8mg card and download an area's detail and then it will give a fairly detailed street level info for a given city or region. Forget trying to load more than one city or region at a time with the 8 mg card. City like Houston takes up the entire card's memory. Really like the automatic tracking feature, and its "track back" feature. The instruction book is not all that good, I have found some features are not very clearly explained in the material. But in all, for the price, and for my frequent road trips (200 -400 miles) is a nice tool. One other thing, the GPS comes really with nothing. Recommend the buyer also by the carring case, at least the 8mg card, PC cable (if you buy the softeare for detail downloads), and car battery charger.

The Emap is simply the best personal mapping GPS available.The screen is very legible and the base map is fairly complete withmost Federal and State highways. It also shows services available at interstate exits such as gas, food, and lodging.

Emap supports downloadable maps, but you must get the propriatary Garmin software which is pretty expensive. To get the most out of the Emap, you really need to get either the Roads and Recreation or the MetroGuide software. Both provide street level detail for the entire U.S. including all city streets and local roads.

The Roads and Recreation maps are downloaded on a county by county basis. You can select up to 99 counties to load, although the 8MB cartridge can only hold about 40-45 counties. The MetroGuide software downloads entire 8MB sections, so you can only use one section at a time. If you do much traveling outside your area, you will need extra cartridges for additional MetroGuide areas.

MetroGuide does offer address finding and area points of interest that Roads & Recreation doesn't, but for most people, R&R will be enough.

You owe it to yourself to check out the map viewer to see which software package you need. The map viewer shows exactly the information that will be downloaded to the Emap. Keep in mind that only one section at a time can be downloaded from the MetroGuide unless you have the 16MB cartridge.

Overall, this is an excellent map unit for travel use. It doesn't offer route planning, but you can manually set up waypoints along your route and it will tell you which direction they are and when you are getting close. I just wish that other mapping companies' maps could be downloaded rather than depending on the pricy Garmin software.

I have owned this unit for about 18 months and have absolutely no regrets. Yes, it did take a few weeks to learn how to use the unit, but it was well worth the time.

I found the easiest way to learn was to use it while navigating on long trips. By the time we got to our destination, I was an eMap expert. Want to find a decent restaurant along the way? Use the find/exits feature. Better yet, position the cursor on a major city and use find/points of interest/food. When traveling to Springfield, Illinois last weekend this is how we found a really cool coffee shop along the way in Crawfordsville, Indiana. After lunch I pressed find/points of interest/historical. We toured an old "rotating jail" museum from the 1800's located just a few blocks away.

Sure, the information might have been in AAA books, but we spent zero minutes lost using the Garmin, and the Garmin has far more restaurants than AAA (and the phone numbers and addresses to boot!)

... I bought the 128 MB card, the USB programmer and the leather case. Using the USB programmer it takes about 14 minutes to flash the 128 MB card. A serial connection requires about 8 hours to flash a 32 MB card. If you download maps frequently like I do, the USB is worth it.

A final note: the eMap is one of the few GPS units with the buttons under the screen rather than above the screen. Big deal? Well ergonomically this makes sense since you will not be covering the screen with your hands when using the GPS. I never understood why this layout is not more popular.

Just buy it.

I live in the UK and electronic equipment costs much more here than in the USA. But I was going to visit friends Stateside and saw the Sandisk 256Mb Compact flash card on offer at Amazon.Com. So I bought one and had it shipped to my friends in Florida (Amazon.Com won't ship this type of item outside Uncle Sam-land).

It works fine on my Minolta Dimage7 digital camera. Some Dane-Elec cards had been causing problems with this camera but a Minolta firmware upgrade cured that. But the Sandisk card worked OK "out of the box" just like that, and the price was right. What more can one say!!

I have my cannon S100 for six months now. The camera is so small that I take it anywhere I go and take pictures of everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.

When you go here and there taking pictures there are two things that can stop you happy travel: Battery life and storage space.

This card cross over any storage limits you could have.

Let me tell you a few words about
this little fellow:
1. Sandisk is known for its great compatibility so it isn't ikely that you will have compatibility problems
2. Used with my cannon S100 Digital Elph it can hold:
- 1550 pics in low resolution Hard to beat for Web publishing or e-mailing
- 420 pics in medium resolution. This resolution is really good for prints up to 5 x 7
- 170 pics in high resolution. Pretty good for one single card. Outstanding prints up to 8 x 10
3. No problems with speed. Sandisk cards are as fast as any other.

In my experience 170 pictures at resolution for prints of 8x10 is enough for a complete weekend of pictures, but if you feel you are running out of space you just change to medium resolution for prints up to 5x7.

With this card you can forget the frustrating experience of running out of space in the sunset of Sunday the weekend you decided to expend in the beach.

You won't find this card at this very good price anywhere else, so go for it

I purchased this sandisk 256 mb compact flash card as I don't want to keep changing cards from 16mb or 32 mb. If you are using a high end digital camera, I would hightly recommend that you purchase this card. Remember, to get great quality prints you need to shoot on a "fine" setting and this quickly uses up memory. That will also allow you room to crop out. You want to make sure that when you are using your camera on a special occasion, you don't have to stop what you are doing and have to change cards.

I Downloded the User manual (Adobe Acrobat) from Amazon and was able to read all the gory details about the product before buying it.
The big motivator was the price! I looked in Best Buy and the baseline cost for a MiniDV camcorder is Four hundread bucks.
The rebate of 100$ brings it to a very attractive price point.
This was a Fathers Day gift ("Thank you Dear wife!!"). I owned a Hi8 camcorder for nearly 6 yrs and It was time to upgrade. This will last me for another 5 yrs easily, until the next technology (Maybe HDTV quality recording on blue laser discs).
I am very satisfied with how it looks and what its doing.
My dad what impresssed that it looks more like a Camera than a Comcorder. Make sure you order the IEEE 1394 (6pin/4pin) cable for transfer to computer and get MiniDV (ME) tapes. Amazon had good deals on them too.
If you download the user manual which is provided on Amazon - you wiff find out all the technical info you need to know.
I a very happy with my decision. I found out that I can edit my movies on Windows movie Maker 2 (Free program on Windows XP and Me), and transfer it back to the MiniDV.
Just Buy it !! You'll Like It!

This is a really useful little camcorder. For my hands, it's almost too small, but has a lot of very handy features, like the fade in/fade out and single frame capture via SD card. The video capture is consistent with all entry level cameras: it likes a lot of light! The digital camera function is OK, but don't expect the same performance as a 3 Mpixel camera that costs as much as this camcorder. If you really want low-light high performance or a bunch of professional features, you will have to cough up a LOT more money. If you want a handy little gizmo to record casual lifetime moments, this is the one!
I want to make a specific comment about Firewire performance: my WinXP machine recognized this device and loaded the drivers in 30 seconds. I was downloading and editing video in less than 5 minutes. Earlier notes from other correspondents regarding Sharp's non-performance in this arena are misinformed.
I recommend adding a Firewire (IEEE-1394 or iLink)card to your computer (and a lot of drive space), you'll be wondering how you ever did without this!

This was my first actual purchase for a camcorder. I have experience with other units because of my job in computer technology. My main reason for buying this camcorder was the price. It had all of the features I needed as well. It has Firewire (IEEE 1394) to download the video to a PC, and it has USB to download the still shots to a PC. The quality is very nice. We took it on vacation to the Gulf of Mexico and were pleased with the convenient size and weight. I would definitely recommend this unit for someone to purchase. (By the way, at the time of our purchase, we received a $100 rebate from Sharp since it was purchased on Amazon.com but I don't believe that is currently available).

I used this 128MB Sandisk CF card with my Nikon 885 digital camera on a recent trip to Vietnam. While it does store plenty of high quality images, the issue I have with this card is the read/write rate. As the card fills up with pictures it becomes slow to store the picture you just took. I estimate that this took up to 15 seconds, an eternity while waiting to take another picture. Even more painful is reviewing and deleting pictures. Going through thumbnails of about 100 pictures took 5-10 minutes as the camera struggled to read from the memory card. I also took along a Lexar 16MB 8X card that displayed my pictures almost instantaneously. This is a lower capacity card but it gave me a comparison. Sandisk doesn't do a very good job of stating its read/write speeds. These speeds(along with # of MBs) is what distinguishes mainstream from professional quality cards. Professional photographers don't have time to wait to take another picture or review their older pictures. I am buying a large capacity Lexar 12X card to be my primary high storage card and the Sandisk card will be my backup for overflow situations.

One of the "must-haves" for digital cameras is the ability to store a significant number of pictures. The SanDisk 128Mb card provided the ability to store over 700, which was adequate for our upcoming two-week vacation.

Why the SanDisk? I checked out compatibility (actually, the Kodak DX3600 required an upgrade to provide support for this product), and reviewed the ... organization's site ... . The dollars/megabyte, from one of the bigger manufacturers, was right. A five-year warranty closed the deal for me. Finally, it's proven itself reliable for the past few months. NO problems whatsoever.

I bought this about 10 hours before leaving for Disney World. I use it in a Nikon Coolpix 700 (2.1 mp) set at the basic mode (1600 x 1200, apx 240k per pic with full compression). I took 471 pictures and had room for over 100 more. Download of 108 meg with a USB card reader took about 5 minutes. A side effect I had not counted on was that write times increased as the card got full. With a 16MB card I never noticed this but toward the end of 128MB the delay was very noticeable. "Boot time" (pause after turning on the camera) was increased too. Again, something that was never an issue with a smaller card. A good reason to hang on to your older, smaller ram cards for things like sporting events frames per second are important. If picture quality is essential to your work, the size fo the card makes full TIFF images (8 meg per) a viable option. Memory may not be cheaper for a long time. I paid the same for this card that I paid for a 16MB card 2 years ago. Highly recomended.

I bought this card reader when I purchased a new Canon s100 Digital ELPH camera. I did not want to have to connect my camera to the PC every time I took photos.

If you want a very inexpensive card reader that's easy to install an use then this one is definitely the way to go. As mentioned in other reviews, there is a known confict with Adaptec EZ CD Creator Software. So, if you have EZ CD Creator you will need to install the patch BEFORE you install this reader. The patch is very easy to install and takes only a few minutes. If you're totally clueless on the PC just get someone who knows what their doing to help you out. I almost went with a different reader beacuse of the horror stories I read about the conflict. However, after reading about it further at the right technical sources I soon learned it's such an easy fix. This reader is so inexpensive I figured if I couldn't get to work I wasn't risking much. The patch is a snap so don't let that stop you.

As for performance, the file transfer is fast. The unit is very low profile and sits easily on top of your desk, pc or monitor. I did notice once in while I don't get the CF card seated just right in the reader and I get an inaccesible message. Just need to reseat it and it works like a charm.

Bottom line: This product is a great value.

When you get tired of using the 'default' method of transferring photos or MP3s from your digital camera or player to your computer, it's time to get this neat little peripheral. I have a Kodak DC4800 camera and pictures take FOREVER to transfer from my camera to my hard drive. Plus, I had to physically plug in my camera to the computer. No more.

I picked up this nifty guy and it sits right on top of my monitor. It easily snapped in to my USB port and getting set up (installing the software) was a piece of cake. I've got Windows 98. Before I knew it, I was inserting my 128MB CompactFlash card, uploading my pictures, and emailing to friends and family. Deleting them from your CompactFlash card is so much easier and faster than doing it on your camera too. You can use Windows Explorer or My Computer to manipulate files from your CompactFlash card just as you normally would with your hard drive. All in all, it may not be essential, but it certainly wouldn't be a bad thing to have either.

Very very good product. Two years and still working like new.

I Highly recommend the XD digital cameras and XD memory cards. I purchased a Fujifilm S5000 digital camera which came with a standard Fujifilm 16mb card. I upgraded to this Fujifilm 128mb XD card and have had no regrets or problems. A good deal for a price of around $50 to $65 dollars. You can double the memory, 256mb, for around $110 dollars. I found the Olympus 128mb XD card is cheaper in price than the Fuji, but when I researched them both, the Olympus card when you touch the connectors (example: removing from camera) the memory, in some incidents, have been erased. This was a risk I was not going to chance for $2 to $6 dollars less in price. In the 6M quality mode ( 2816 x 2120 pixels ) I can get approx 90 photo's and 165 photo's in the 3M quality mode ( 2048 x 1536 pixels ).

The XD high speed can greatly enhance the user's experience with the product. A photographer can take & store new pictures or view existing images on the LCD screen more quickly with the XD Picture Card than with other, slower media formats. This means less battery drainage!

The Con's - *Small: could easily be misplaced or lost. *Price: the XD card is a little bit more expensive than other memory cards, but you get what you pay for!

I Highly recommend the XD digital cameras and XD memory cards. I purchased a Fujifilm S5000 digital camera which came with a standard Fujifilm 16mb card. I upgraded to this Fujifilm 128mb XD card and have had no regrets or problems. A good deal for a price of around $50 to $65 dollars. You can double the memory, 256mb, for around $110 dollars. I found the Olympus 128mb XD card is cheaper in price than the Fuji, but when I researched them both, the Olympus card when you touch the connectors the memory, in some incidents, have been erased. This was a risk I was not going to chance for $2 to $6 dollars less in price. In the 6M quality mode ( 2816 x 2120 pixels ) I can get approx 90 photos and 165 photos in the 3M quality mode ( 2048 x 1536 pixels ).

The XD high speed can greatly enhance the user's experience with the product. A photographer can take & store new pictures or view existing images on the LCD screen more quickly with the XD Picture Card than with other, slower media formats. This means less battery drainage!

The Con's,
Small: could easily be misplaced or lost.
Price: the XD card is a little bit more expensive than other memory cards, but you get what you pay for!

the Fuji and Olympus xD cards DO NOT cost 2-21/2x the other types available and in use today--I understand change is difficult for some folks but telling untruths about a new product is unacceptable---the xD card is faster and uses less battery juice which helps the photographer by making battery charge or change less frequent(saves money and time)--therefore, any small difference in initial purchase costs will be repaid many times over duting the life of the card--watch where you buy electronics and get the best prices before you spend your dollars (buy Amazon.com)

UPDATE: Well, I got it a few days ago and took some test shots with it on my Canon A40, plus tried both it and a more expensive SanDisk (128mb) card with the SimpleTech USB CF reader. I really didn't see a significant difference. Both were plenty fast in the camera and in the transfer. I cannot find fault.

I'll stick by the words below. You need to do your homework because some cameras don't work well with all cards, but if you've got a Canon, this baby works great.

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After reading the reviews, I decided to see if someone had tested a variety of cards. I found a good review at Digital Photography Review. They tested various high-capacity cards (512 mb range) in various cameras.

Yes, the Simpletech is one of the slowest cards in a Nikon 995. It came in at less than half the speed of a Lexar 16x. On the Canon EOS 1D and D30 as well as read/write tests on a firewire (IEEE 1394) card reader, the SimpleTech card beat the Lexar 16x every time.

It's not easy to pick the best CF card for your particular camera because there aren't good established benchmarking standards and what works great in one camera can be a dog in another. But from what I've seen in terms of people testing the SimpleTech, though it doesn't work well with Nikon, it works great with a lot of other cameras.

I've ordered one and I'll update this review when my Canon A40 and Simpletech 256 come in. For now I'll give it 4 stars so as not to distinctly affect the rating in one direction or another.

...and I'll take it! A 256 meg card in my Canon S100 set to its default resolution got a reading of 1578 shots available! That's an incredible amt of space and for someone heading off on an extended trip. I have been following CF costs on a dollar-per-meg basis for some time, and while the newest & largest cards have tended to carry a premium, this one does not. It is under fifty cents per meg, less than 1/4 of what it cost per meg only 18 months ago!

I've read many reviews about Compact Flash card speed and a couple of them here on Amazon. I read one review that listed some very high speeds for other brands, above 8000 kb/s. I don't know where that data came from, but in independant photo review sites, this SimpleTech card screams. No other brand was faster. By the way, no brand has ever tested in Camera's that even came close to 8000 kb/s or above.
Most CF cards test in at around 2000 Kb/s, some well known brands(SanDisk and Lexar) are at 800kb/s not 8000!!!! If you really want the truth, no card does well in Nikon's. They read at one bit, other cameras,Canon, Minolta etc read with 4 bits, are more advanced and produce superior results with both read and write speeds. The more advanced Camera's do make a difference. Check out independant reviews first, before you buy a camera or a card for your camera.

I have had nothing but trouble trying to use this. PiMover is a great idea, but unfortunately the documentation is written in something that looks similar to English, but makes little sense! It's one of those where foreigners write the manual, and no one reviews it for English sensibility. I managed to transfer a few files by playing around with it, but even now don't know how I did it, so trying to repeat it means starting all over again. For me, this has been a waste of time and money.

I originally bought the MatchbookAdapter - a first generation compactflash to springboard application about a year ago. Though that device helped me out tremendously, there were a few functions that were not supported - like a full backup capabilty on the road.

I've had my Visor Deluxe crash on my more times than I can remember and lose all my data because I was nowhere near a computer to sync it. This memplug allows you to save MULTIPLE images to your CF, SM, SD, MMC or whatever card. Their latest firmware upgrade even supports VFS (Virtual File System) as much as the OS 3.1 is capable of handling.

I do have a few software conflicts (ie: MobiBook), and its reliability is not superior. However, it IS functional and the quirks can be dealt with.

On a sadder note, Memplug's Customer Service is not all that wonderful, but apparently getting better. Their manual is written in what appears to be English edited by a non-native speaker - as is some of their interface software. Other than that, a FINE product!

I've owned my MEMPLUG for almost five months now and it just keeps getting better? How? The program PiDirect expands the usefulness of MEMPLUG. I had quickly run out of room on my 8 meg Visor Prism. Adding the MEMPLUG and a 64 Meg SmartMedia card, initially just increased my storage capacity but was cheaper than buying a 16 Meg internal ram upgrade. Then PiDirect was released in June 2001. The curtain lifted and the stage came alive with the abundance of programs I wanted to carry and easily access on my Visor Prism. There is still a fairly steep learning curve to using PiDirect, but nothing beats it for utility, stability, and price. It has a minimal drain on battery power when compared to Compact Flash cards. The Manufacturer, PIT, is the most responsive author of software out there with a tremendous customer service team that answers questions and troubleshoots around the clock, 24 hours a day. I never waited longer than 1/2 day to get a response to an email (usually within an hour). And, they upgrade rapidly in response to validated "bugs" and the practical "wishlists" submitted by customers. If you have a Visor with only 8 or even 16 Meg ram, you'll love this product.

These cute and inarguably convenient little inventions are hardly worth hours of consumer research, but the SanDisk Cruzer is my 3rd such device in 3 weeks, and I'm satisfied. I started with a Lexar, but it was so tiny and elusive I gave it to my wife (who has since misplaced it). Then I tried a Cyclone, but it wouldn't fit into my hub without some reconfiguration of cables. I like the Sandisk because it's the size and weight of a cigarette lighter, not a cigarette butt, and because the included short cable makes USB connections a breeze--both into tight places and ports that are not in plain sight.

Finally, when I did the number crunching, the SanDisk--at the price Amazon.com was selling it for (just divide total megs by total price to determine cost per MB)--provided the most bang for the buck. At that price, it's cheaper than many memory cards, yet you've got the equivalent of a Zip Drive in your pocket. (On the other hand, if you spend more, you may wish to consider a storage device that also plays MP3 files.)

For the record, I've had no compatibility problems with any of these flash drives, at least with Macs. The SanDisk comes with its own little storage "pouch," so it must be the Crown Royal of the breed.

This is a nice value if you want a 256Mb SD card and don't want to have to spend extra for a separate card reader. The card reader is a big help, it's faster and more convenient than a direct USB connection between the camera and computer.

I really love having a 256Mb card for my camera. I can store hundreds of high-res 2048x1536 JPG images on my camera before having to download to my computer.

Once the Cruzer is attached to the computer, it works great. I didn't need any software at all to get it to work with Windows 2000 (it shows up as a removable drive).

But I agree with other reviewers that the Cruzer reader is a cheaply built device. The slide mechanism is plastic and usually gets stuck, requiring a little extra effort to get it to work. Also, the accompanying USB cable is only a couple inches long, which makes it inconvenient if your USB port is on the back of your PC.

When I bought it the price of the Cruzer/256Mb card combo was exactly the same as the price of the card by itself. Since I was buying the card anyway, it made sense to buy the combo.

Bottom line: as long as the Cruzer/card combo costs as much as the card alone, it makes sense to buy the combo. However I wouldn't buy the Cruzer on its own.

Suggestion for Kay Wischkaemper from Atlanta, GA
Use the install disk that came with the cruzer or download SDCZ1 from sandisk.com
Drivers dropdown, Cruzer (SDCZ1)
Windows 98SE
Exe File
2.14MB