Question about SD cards

[mwise]

I am a brand new, and very proud owner of my Axim x51v. I know that for the uses I plan for it I will be needing a larger memory card. I hope for it to be SD rather then the also available CF because I don't have a CF card reader just yet. I have several questions about them though. I know that size is important and of course bigger is better, so thats not really a question. Is there a certain brand I should buy, Sandisk, Kingston, whatever, or avoid for that matter? With the Sandisk there are several variations, Ultra II and Extreme III, what are these and why would I rather have them then a standard sd card? And finally, I am considering a 1 GB disk, and plannin on spending no more then $50 on it, where can I get a 1 GB or larger disk for that price?

[Alastair]

Hi mwise

I use a variety of cards, if you are in the Us shop around 'cos you get some very good deals from places such as New Egg etc.

Get the largest card you can afford - I use Lexar, Kingston and lately Transcend all of which work well and I have no complaints about. As for CF readers you should be able to pick up a USB card reader very cheaply and 1GB cards should cause no issues. Some multi card readers struggle with larger cards - mine for instance has no problems with a 4GB CF but throws a fit when I try to use my 4GB SD. So I use separate USB readers.

[sbddude]

I recently got a corsair 2gb SD card for $40 after rebate. So, if your budget is $50 you should have no problem. I've used corsair and sandisk without problems. Sandisk tends to be overpriced. Check newegg.com and pricegrabber.com for best prices.

[Asmodee]

I got a Transcend 4GB 150x sd card for mine for $185 at some online retailer a few months ago and it has worked great with the normal 'SD card dissapearing' problems occasionally. There's a fix for that, I just haven't taken the time to do it yet.

On a side note, I was delighted to find on Amazon.com a Lexar JumpDrive Trio for under $20 shipping and all. It looks like an oversized USB flash drive (about twice as big), but instead of memory in it, it has an SD slot. Makes copying files a LOT faster than doing it through the Axim. We're talking night and day, as in copying all the files using the Trio in less time than it takes to copy one of the files through the Axim. So far I have not had any problems with the files not being converted to PPC format through ActiveSync or any other problems I can think of. If only it came with a neck strap it would be perfect and I would use it constantly. As it is, it sits in my computer toolkit and only gets used at work, when I think about it and feel like digging for it. I don't want to scratch it up in my pocket, so there's no real way to carry it with me everywhere.

[AndersH]

I’ve got a Corsair 133x 1GB card for my digital camera and it’s pretty swift. Haven’t benched it in a PDA yet but I will do. Stay well away from the standard Kingston cards, they are slow as hell in the x50. The Kingston "Elite Pro" high speed (45x), i.e. mid-range, cards aren’t bad though.

This thread should prove useful from the storage card forum.

[Menneisyys]

Also, make sure you optimize the card; for example, by eliminating the FAT backup table. See http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17921 for my article on this.

[paulcb]

Buy the absolutely largest card you can afford. You'll always want more storage. I have a 4G A-Data that works perfectly with my A06 X51v - never had a "disappearing SD card".

[Asmodee]

Great link. I wasted WAY too much time at work reading that. I think I'll be checking out SK tools and copying the Novii Remote codes base repeatedly to my card to tweak it out. Thanks.