SD cards?

I'm looking for a 1GB SD card for my pocket PC and eBay has loads but I'm not sure about Lexar and Sandisk brands. These are really cheap but are they worth it? There are better brands (IMO) like Panasonic but these are going for a lot. Anyone have any experience or advice?

Brand wise Lexar and Sandisk are mainstream and should be fine. Speedwise however, I believe Panasonic still make the fastest series of cards.

Yes, the Panasonic one I was looking at was 10mb/sec which I'd never need. 2MB/sec is fine for me - I'm only going to be playing video files (avi's). But after reading stories on other forums they say to avoid the cheaper brands.

Does anyone have an HP ipaq 4150 with a cheap SD card? Any probs?

I wouldn't say Lexar and Sandisk are the "cheaper" brands however. You can get really random unknown junk off eBay if you look.

There's "going for alot" and then there's "going for A lot" (as in the discounts for "big lots"). And then there's the super-secret (SHHH!) Panasonic Employee Purchase Plan, under which you may qualify to get another 20-25% off the lowest E.S.P. on parts and accessories of all shapes and sizes!

I have an Ipaq 4155 with a 256mb PNY SD card. I have had problems with my backups that I save onto my SD card, but other than that I haven't had any problems....

You should be able to get a SanDisk 1 GB Ultra II for ~ $90, which is the high-speed 10 MB/s variant. Any cheaper will likely not be the high-speed. I'm using one (from zipzoomfly.com) in my Treo 650 for music and haven't had any problems reading fast enough, it keeps up with Pocket Tunes just fine.

--Nathan

So I'm about to buy a Canon SD300 camera. I've read some reviews that say that the "fast" SD cards are recommended. Does anyone have any first hand experience on this topic? Do the high speed versions of these cards really make any notable difference whatsoever?

- Thanx
- Jon

Readin' speed is *never* a problem (OK, rarely). It's writin' (like digicams/corders must do) that puts the demands on a card.

Two Words: Panasonic Rules.

I just got the SD300, and I'm using it with a 128MB SanDisk card that I'm sure doesn't qualify as "fast". However, it seems plenty fast for me, and it seems to write to the card about an order of magnitude faster than my old Olympus wrote to its SmartMedia card.

So, I'm pleased with a standard card, but I'm probably not a good source for information since my perspective is a little skewed by my previous camera.

I love the SD300, though, by the way.

Hi adavidw,

Can you try using the 60 fps movie mode with your SD300 and let me know if there's any issue with it and your card? I downloaded the Canon manual, and they say several times that a high speed SD card is recommended. I don't want to spend the extra dough if it's really not needed...

I'm also comparing the SD300 to the Pentax Optio S5i (http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/optios5i.html) - 5 megapixel, smaller than the Canon, but it has a smaller LCD screen, is cheaper, is a lot slower, and doesn't have all the features that the SD300 has... Has anyone else compared these two?

- Thanx
- Jon

I switched to the 60fps mode and shot a minute of video of my wife and cat. When I played it back, it was just as smooth as when I shot it, with no hiccup or stutter or anything that might be indicative of a transfer speed problem. I played it through at slow motion speed as well, and didn't notice any problem.

In my mind, it seems like the highest transfer rate would be at the 30 fps/ 640x480 setting, since that would be capturing four times as many pixels per frame as the 60 fps/320x240 setting. Sure, it's half as many frames per second, but still twice the raw data. Either way, I shot some footage in the 30fps/640x480 mode, and about 22 seconds into it started getting the red exclamation mark that means it's running out of internal memory buffer (because it's not able to flush out to the SD card fast enough). After about 42 seconds, the internal memory filled up, and it stopped recording. Hmph.

I looked at that Pentax as well, but the things that kept me from getting it were a slightly slower startup time and a non-standard USB port (one more cable to lug around) (I haven't verified that this particular one has a non-standard port. I just remember what the other Pentaxen I looked at had.) Additional factors were the bigger viewfinder on the Canon, and generally liking the Canon's look and interface better. I did like the idea of the docking station for the Pentax, but as far as I can tell, it's just for charging and not for USB. I didn't even remotely consider image quality between the two, however.