SD card speeds - do they matter for us?

11-27-05, 04:03 PM

Is there any appreciable advantage to buying a 120X speed SD card for use on an x51v as opposed to a slower SD card?

I know the high speed SD's are intended for cameras which need to write out massive photo files quickly. But with a PDA, would there be any similar advantage?

Worth buying a slower SD card to save money? Or would the read/write speeds of a faster card make it worth paying the extra bucks?

bigbop · 11-27-05, 04:27 PM

The minimum speed of an SD card is 10X (1.5Mbit/s). That's what I use. I also have a faster card but the data transfers to it at about the same speed. Save your cash.

stevenator65 · 11-27-05, 04:55 PM

I agree w/bigbop. Just buy a decent quality card and you won't have a problem.

11-27-05, 05:00 PM

Great to hear, saves money. :) Thanks.

11-27-05, 05:02 PM

I've found that "write intensive" app's installed to a lower speed SD card don't work well -- 32x or better is what I'd recommend, though I've seen no difference in my 32x and 66x cards. Regular speed cards are too slow to use with app's like FeederReader where hundreds of files are read and written on every RSS file update... I don't feel that ultra fast (120x) cards offer any advantage (i.e. 32x is fast enough).

11-27-05, 05:07 PM

Great, I'll use the 32X minimum as the general rule for buying.

jaroddog · 11-27-05, 08:42 PM

I just bought a SanDisk 1 GB card from Best Buy. It was $40. I think it is a standard model. Would anyone know what speed it is?

0gopogo · 11-27-05, 10:43 PM

So you found your way over here from bargaindpa.com; welcome. To answer your question, AFAIK the blue SanDisk cards have no speed rating. I have seen a post in which this card's read rate is reported as 9+ MB/s, I don't recall where. IMO that number is too good to be true, but anyway, for $40 retail and no rebates you got an extremely nice deal indeed.

If you want to compare card speeds you could test your card with SPB Benchmark (free).

Gigi · 11-27-05, 10:48 PM

If the price difference is not too significant, get the faster card. You'll notice the difference during card reader transfers.

Howard2k · 11-27-05, 10:59 PM

I'd got for the faster card too. I'd have no problem paying a 10%/15% premium for the extra speed. The card could well last longer than the PDA and you may find that your next PDA might make use of the speed or you might use it in a camera etc.

davarei · 11-27-05, 11:05 PM

Also, although the card may not have in AXIM benefits, if you use a card reader, you might notice speed diff.
Otherwise, the AXIM is not configured to take advantage of faster cards.

wannabesean · 11-30-05, 09:09 PM

I have a 512 Mb 60x SD card and a 1 GB 150x SD card, and I can tell a BIG difference in the speed. If you are going to listen to any music (mp3's) or watch any video then you are probably going to buy the faster card. The reasoning for this is that when you transfer the files over the time is GREATLY reduced with the faster speed. For actually playing MP3's on your ax you will not be able to tell any difference from the 10x to the 150x, but if you are watching movies on your ax then you will be able to tell the difference big time. Not only will it load faster, but it will also play the right speed and not glitch at all (This is IF you get the high quality high speed card, at least 80x). Also if you play any games that are very big at all then you will want to get the faster card, not only does the game load faster, it also plays better. Even if you do not play the bigger games or watch movies, you will end up regreting the buy of the cheaper card in the long run when you do decide that maybe you do want to try watching movies on your ax, or maybe you do want to try playing the bigger games. Another plus for the faster cards is that when you open the files in them the files open a lot quicker. For a 60x card that is around 512 MB to 1 GB that is loaded it will take about 5-9 seconds for your ax to show the screen listing all of the items on the card, but for the 150x card it will take only 1 to 2 seconds. Time is money after all!

axzilla · 12-01-05, 10:14 AM

the read speed for almost any flash card is much higher than your ax can attain when you are watching a movie or listening to mp3s you are just reading from the card the write speeds vary alot from card to card and some cards have a slower write speed than your ax so if you will be writing a lot of data with a program on your ax it makes a difference if you have too slow write speed or transfering data with a card reader once the data is on the card you will see no difference in how fast your ax can read it

daman619 · 12-03-05, 02:22 PM

Depends on how you transfer files. I have a kingston elite pro 50x. when i transfer over gps maps(most of the time 100mb+) or 600mb movies through the cradle it would take 30mins+. So i'm assuming the cradle's cable isn't rated for high speed? But when i use the memory card with my memory card reader(which supports hispeed 2.0), the large file transfer over in less than a minute. I'm never going back to anything less than 50x.