@rastaman2000 wrote:
By the way, is it true, what’s stated elsewhere in this forum (the previous post, I guess, e.g.), that SanDisk’s Class 2 cards are as fast as their Class 4 cards or even outperform them? Do they, possibly, equip both with the same memory chips and only label them differently for marketing purposes?
Hi there!
Answering that portion of your message that got left unanswered, I can offer you my personal experience with Sandisk MicroSDHC cards up to now:
First of all I’m pretty happy with all my purchases of Sandisk memory cards (except for one Cruzer Blade pendrive, which had far lower write speeds than any of my MicroSDHC cards of the same capacity). So far I’ve found these cards totally reliable and they’ve always performed above their theoretical minimum specs (ie their Class). I own 4 of them and I’ve also tested 4 more belonging to my parents.
The only point I can really complain about, and which directly relates to your question, is that you don’t realy know what you’ll get for your money. In my experience it’ll be better than the minimum specs, but you just won’t know how much better :smileyvery-happy:
My experience has been the following. All of the below cards reading nearly at 20MB/s, which apparently is the cap of my reader. I can only compare write speeds which, to me, matter a lot:
8GB Sandisk MicroSDHC Class 4 card. Bought when they first came out. Write speed nearly 13MB/s.
8GB Sandisk MicroSDHC Mobile Ultra Class 6 card. Bought when they first came out. Write speed 15MB/s.
16GB Sandisk MicroSDHC Class 2 card. Bought when they first came out, end of 2008. Write speed nearly 13MB/s.
16GB Sandisk MicroSDHC Class 2 card. Bought end of 2010. Write speed around 7MB/s. Bought to the same Sandisk distributor as the one above (the one that provided the first reply to this post).
My parents got 2 more of these cards, with identical performance and a 8GB Sandisk MicroSDHC Class 4 card, with Write speed around 9MB/s.
16GB Sandisk MicroSDHC Class 6, UHS-I card. Bought last week. Write speed around 7,5MB/s. Remains to be seen if the card could actually write at a faster speed with an UHS-I compatible card reader and USB 3.0, but I doubt so.
My parents got 1 more of these cards, with identical performance.
As you will see, all of the above are a little to a Lot faster than the minimum specs, but I’ve got no clue what I’ll get if I buy another one (I was hoping all 3 16GB cards we bought after the first one would be performing at the same level as it did). As for why are the manufacturers doing this, I have not the slightest idea. Here are some wild, random and with no solid base theories:
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Maybe the manufacturer wants to reward the first customers to buy a new card type, giving them the best the card can give even if it doesn’t match its Class.
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Maybe the manufacturer creates the first batch with all the card can give and then limits the speed of further batches which sell at lower prices. This would allow later on delivering less capped cards with higher Class specs at a price close to the original one. As you proposed “marketing reasons” and probably depending on what are the competitors doing.
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Maybe the first batch is delivered at full speed but then issues are found with cards at such speed or maybe the speed shortens their life (I’ve had no problem at all so far with my ultra fast 8GB and 16Gb cards).
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Other random ideas or possibilities
Personally I’d like to always have data on what is the real transfer capacity of the cards, this would let us customers really compare the cards from different manufacturers and decide which one we want. So far I’ve only found this information on MicroSDHC cards on one single product and internet distributor (in this case this is advertised for a Samsung card):
GENERAL
Product Type: Flash memory card
Storage Capacity: 16 GB
MEMORY
Speed Rating: 24 MB/s (read) 13 MB/s (write)
SD Speed Class: Class 6
Form Factor: microSDHC
Maybe they’re not doing this either to avoid complaints from customers that are not getting the advertised speeds because they’re using devices or readers of less transfer capacity than the card itself?
Ok, that was long enough, there you have my 2 cents