Some of the Aximsite veterans will probably recognize what I am saying in this post, but you should find the content interesting nonetheless. The message bears repeating, especially for new users. It applies most forcefully to the X5, but early indications are that it is somewhat relevant to the X3(i) as well.
Notation
For the uninitiated, “OEM” stands for original equipment manufacturer. OEMs are the actual companies that own and operate the memory card factories; the brands you are familiar with buy their cards from the OEMs in bulk and tack their brand stickers on them. Some OEMs are (much) better than others.
Some brands (like SimpleTech and probably Sandisk, which actually does own some factories) seem to have long-term contracts with specific OEMs, while other brands contract with multiple OEMs in various places, which means that their products lack consistency. (Someone correct me if I’m getting this wrong.)
By the Numbers
Here are some interesting numbers for you all to consider from Happycheesecake's
SD Problems site which has been recently updated:
Number of reports of specific, documented SD cards that went
bad in Axim X5s since May 2003 (when data collection started): 943
Sandisk:
Of these 943 bad SD cards, the number that were made by Sandisk: 845
Of these 845 bad Sandisk cards, the number that were made in Taiwan: 624
Of these 845 bad Sandisk cards, the number that were made in China: 221
Of these 845 bad Sandisk cards, the number that were made in Japan:
0
(Sandisk doesn't make any SD in Japan)
Of the other 98 non-Sandisk bad SD cards, the number that were made in Japan: 0
Total number of good Taiwan/China SD cards (of
any brand) reported: 164
(tested using happycheesecake's SD tests, presumably)
SimpleTech:
Total number of SD cards reported: 167
Number of bad SimpleTech SD cards reported: 0
Of the 167 SD cards reported, number of SimpleTech SD cards that are good and made in Japan: 167
(SimpleTech only makes its cards in Japan; it has a partnership with Hitachi.)
Lexar Media:
Total number of SD cards reported: 48
Number of bad SD cards reported: 21
Number of bad SD cards made in Japan: 0
(Lexar has been known to make cards in all three SD-producing countries: China, Taiwan, and Japan)
Made in Japan
See a pattern? These numbers are not taken from a simple random sample, but they are the best quantitative data we have. In addition to being problem-biased, the sample is also affected by the proportion of types of cards out there—some card sizes and brands are more popular than others, distorting the proportion of card type reported. A true simple random sample would simply take 500 cards of every brand and every size and test them. Obviously certain conclusions cannot be supported at all, especially those related to the sub-populations of various capacity (or brand) cards.
The clearest conclusion that we can make from the available data is that SD cards made in Japan are by far the most likely to work perfectly in Axims (and pretty much any device).
In fact, of all the SD cards listed on that page
for all devices, not a single Made-in-Japan SD card is listed as having suffered any problems.
Capacities:
There has been some speculation that only certain memory sizes (128MB, 256MB, etc.) have problems. So far the only memory capacity demonstrated to be pretty much immune to error—in the Axim—is 32MB. We cannot draw many conclusions about what size has the most issues associated with it because this is not a representative sample. For now it should be assumed that error rates in various capacities are relatively similar.
Advertised vs. Actual Memory:
You will notice that your memory cards do not seem to have the "advertised" amount of memory. In the built-in memory utility-checker-thing, the actual memory available always falls short of the number on the sticker.
Or so it seems....the memory companies, instead of taking M.B. to stand for MegaByte, like it should, they take it to mean Million Bytes, which isn't the same thing. A true MB is 1,024 KiloBytes, which is 1,024 Bytes. A true 256MB card should have 256*1024*1024 Bytes which is 268,435,456 Bytes, while the ones on the shelves most likely have--on the high end--255,###,### Bytes if you check them in a computer.
I have noticed significant differences in actual memory reported among brands and countries of origin. And guess what? Japanese SD consistently provides the highest actual memory capacity. It usually isn't a big difference, but for example, all the Japanese 256MB SD cards I have used showed 243.88MB available, whereas Sandisk users frequently report 241 or so. Even a Taiwanese Kingston I used recently had only ("only") 243.13MB, 750KB less than the Japan SD (equivalent of a big ebook).
Brand also seems to make a difference as well. A while ago I had a 512MB Viking CF card, which was made in Japan, and currently I have a 512MB SimpleTech SD card, also made in Japan. The Viking had just under 488MB while my SimpleTech has 491.25MB of actual capacity. That's a little over 3MB difference--again, not much, but enough to fit an extra 3-minute mp3 file.
These differences are not major enough to warrant altering your buying choices, but they're something to think about.
Main Conclusions:
Well first, I stand by the conclusion above about the reliability of Japanese SD cards. Second, I have to personally vouch for KINGSTON SD memory, as I have tested several of their cards made in Taiwan (never seen one made in China), and all of them passed. Moreover, I have never seen a complaint about Kingston SD memory in the past few months when they have offered some of the best SD deals out there; presumably the number of users with Axims and Kingston SD has gone up dramatically and the lack of complaints is impressive. Happycheesecake is the person to ask about the brand's overall reliability as all the obscure complaints go to him.
Cards that use the same OEM as Kingston should work just as well. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing which brands do so. Kingston’s OEM appears to use the same serial number format as Japanese OEMs.
Sandisk:
So how likely is any given Sandisk OEM (Taiwan/China) SD card to fail in an Axim?
Happycheesecake seems to have turned up evidence that certain series Sandisk SD work well in some devices but not others. According to Happycheesecake, X3(i) users should be wary of using Sandisk SD cards with “N” as the penultimate letter in the serial number.
X5 users (I dont know if the same applies to X3 users yet) should know that whether a Sandisk OEM SD card will have issues in their Axim depends in part on their Axim's SD slot. Dell has been known (this is according to happycheesecake) to use at least two types of SD slots; one of these is finicky and hates Sandisk, resulting in major problems, and the other one seems more amenable to Sandisk and everybody else. Thus SD problems are not solely a function of the SD card. (Axim X3s' main issue is that some SD slots simply don't work at all.)
Polls taken on sites like this about Sandisk SD have shown rather high failure/problem rates. The same is true of the posts in this forum and elsewhere. As I have said before, these rates and posts are biased. People come to forums mainly when they have problems--you rarely hear from most of the casual users with flawless SD cards because most of them never even look at SD card threads.
Also, Sandisk SD performance has gone up substantially since fall 2003.
Thus, while Sandisk has been battered and defamed constantly by users--myself included, occasionally--on this site and others, and in spite of all appearances in the Aximsite forums.......I believe that a majority of Sandisk SD is reliable. Not a staggering majority, but probably still a majority. I know that's not terribly helpful, but there is not enough objective information to compose the true picture more accurately.
The Best Brands:
Brands that only get their SD cards from Japanese OEMs: Memorex (unconfirmed), Panasonic, SimpleTech, Toshiba. The only sure way to tell if a card was made in Japan is to look at the printing on the card itself.
Also Recommended: Kingston and Lexar. Not enough information is available to say much about smaller SD brands.
Good luck with your cards.
Final Comments
I
SO do not have a life. Please use it to your advantage. ;)
My “credentials:”
I buy and sell memory cards every now and then, and frequently try them out and/or test them before selling them. I have also been inexplicably obsessed with SD and flash memory in general ever since getting my first Lexar in February 2003, and have followed SD card threads religiously ever since. For real expertise, however, you have to talk to Happycheesecake.
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