Saturday 21 December 2013

SanDisk Ultra Class 10 Micro SDHC - Memory/Storage Devices

Hello everyone! :)
Today I am going to review a 16 GB Micro SD Card: "SanDisk Ultra Class 10 Micro SDHC".





What is Micro SD/SDHC/SDXC




Secure Digital (SD) is a non-volatile memory card format for use in portable devices, such as mobile phones, digital cameras, GPS navigation devices, and tablet computers. The Secure Digital standard was introduced in 1999 as an evolutionary improvement over MultiMediaCards (MMC). The Secure Digital standard is maintained by the SD Card Association (SDA). SD technologies have been implemented in more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models.

The Secure Digital format includes four card families available in three different form factors. The four families are the original Standard-Capacity (SDSC), the High-Capacity (SDHC)[Underlined because my review is considering this one :D], the eXtended-Capacity (SDXC), and the SDIO, which combines input/output functions with data storage. The three form factors are the original size, the "mini" size, and the "micro" size. Electrically passive adapters allow the use of a smaller card in a host device built to hold a larger card.

There are many combinations of form factors and device families, although as of 2014, the prevailing formats are full- or micro-size SDHC and full/micro SDXC.

The SDA uses several trademarked logos to enforce compliance with its specifications and assure users of compatibility.

What is Class 10




It is a specification of the SD cards which refers to the speed of SD card. Similar to CDs and DVDs, SD cards have certain rated write speeds. Class 0 cards are those that were designed before the Speed Class Rating was defined by the SD Association. Class 2 SD cards have write speeds of 2 MB per second. Class 4 is 4 Mbps. Class 6 is 6 Mbps, and Class 10 is 10 Mbps and so on.

Class 10 has following features:

  • High Speed Bus
  • Full HD video recording>
  • HD still consecutive recording
  • Class 10 cards are the second-fastest group of cards.

SanDisk: A reputed name


SanDisk Corporation is an American multinational corporation that designs, develops and manufactures flash memory storage solutions and software. It was founded in 1988 by Dr. Eli Harari, Jack Yuan and Sanjay Mehrotra, non-volatile memory technology experts. The Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company is based in Silicon Valley and has more than half its sales outside the United States. Its products are sold at more than 250,000 retail locations in more than 100 countries. SanDisk became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ in November 1995. As of August 2013, its market capitalization was over US$14 billion.

Official Website: http://www.sandisk.com/

Price


I bought it in a 'deal of the day' offer, so I paid just 690 INR(i.e., ~12 USD). Yeah, that was quite a great deal that day. But anyways, if you find a deal that is priced reasonably, like -> 16GB SanDisk Class 2 < 16GB SanDisk Class 10 < 32GB SanDisk Class 2 <- can be considered an OK deal :) Apart from that, if we analyse the value for money thing, well if you need high speed memory then it is certainly a good investment, since it has a good data transfer speed and an awesome warranty of 5 years, yeah that's right FIVE YEARS, I guess it certainly is a good buy :D


Tests Equipment


The following is what I used to do any speed tests that I support my review with(Hover over to know the specs):
  • Class 2 Card
  • Class 10 Card
  • Mobile Phone
  • USB
  • Adapter

Comparison with Class 2


I had a set of data which was ~585MB large. It included small files of ~4.60 MB each. The following images can help you visualize the speed of data transfer. I agree the following data is not good enough for this comparison because for Class 2 I have shown read and for Class 10 write data, but still, I hope you know that read speeds are higher than write speeds, which certainly imply how cool a Class 10 card is! So I'd rather say, the data is great, not just good :P Check out the read speed of Class 2 card:









The same data being written back to the Class 10 card(SanDisk Ultra in this case)







From the above data, it is evident that there is a considerable increase in speed of data transfer. If we take the above data only, you can consider the following table to see the improvement in speed:

Class 2 Class 10 Improvement
8.9375 MB/s 25.73 MB/s 187.88%

Phew! that is a nice improvement, isn't it? :D

Speed




In the following pics you can see the data transfer rate for a heavy file, ~3GB large. The data transfer is not through a card adapter this time, but the card is inside my phone and the data transfer is going on via Micro-USB cable











In the following pics I have again shown pics of the files I used to compare class 2 and class 10 card, now their transfer back to computer, but this time the card is not in the adapter, but inside my phone, so now data is being transferred through a Micro-USB cable













The above data shows that inside my phone the speed of card has reduced significantly. But still in comparison to my class 2 card, I'd say it's still a much better performer. I guess my phone's MicroSD car BUS is not compliant for class 10 data transfer rates. But anyways, the card is working fine! :P And also it is evident that the speed is quite high for both flash transfers and wire transfers.

Packaging


The packaging is seriously amazing. I have included snaps of my card so that you can see the original packaging. Also I have included a pic that shows opened packaging for further clarification.







You can see that the packaging is really good. A card casing with fine prints of terms :P and some relevant and irrelevant information.

SanDisk Memory Zone: Android Application




I'd call it a wrong claim and a right claim. Why mixed expressions? Well quite simple! It has a mark that redirects us to the fine printing on the back of the packaging, that states the applications needs to be downloaded! Phew :/

Though I have already downloaded and checked the application. This applications is quite cool. The interface is good and the app is cool too. But a problem that I faced was that, on testing the speed of my card, the application failed to detect that I am using a class 10 card :P LOL!

SanDisk Memory Zone offers you more memory management functionality than any other application available for the Android™ phone. SanDisk Memory Zone puts you in complete control. Manage and backup both your local and cloud memory with one free app. Move files back and forth from your memory card to select cloud services, or from the cloud directly to your phone. Cloud services supported: Box, Dropbox, Google Docs, Picasa, SugarSync, SkyDrive and Facebook. SanDisk Memory Zone not only allows you to transfer and back up your files, it also allows you to secure them through a password protection feature. So you have the peace of mind knowing your videos, photographs, music and other files are not only available, but they’re available only to you.

You can get this application here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sandisk.mz&hl=en

Adapter




The bundled adapter appears to be of good quality and well what can I say about it now? It is just another Mirco SD Card adapter! :O I am not sure if there's anything really special about it!



Warranty


5 year limited warranty. No issues as yet so nothing I can say about this one.

Verdict




Yeah, that's 4.5 out of 5 stars. Why not 5 on 5 for this beauty? Well because the App didn't recognise that I was using a Class 10 card >_< and also the card fits into the slots a bit too tightly than the normal Class 2 ones, so it is tedious to remove them once they are placed, which becomes a scary experience(it might break! :O) Overall, it is a good card and a worth-full purchase if you get a nice deal. For cameras and video recording this is something you really need for the good recording of your 1080p HD Videos. So if you think that, "SHOULD I REALLY BUY A CLASS 10 CARD": As mentioned above if you wish to record HD Videos(1080p) then you need one. If you have a huge amount of data being transferred between your Micro SD Card and computer, then also Class 10 card would be a appropriate choice. Else if you get it in the cost of a class 2/4/6 :P

And if you read this review just to know whether or not Class 10 is a worthy investment: Well, in simple words, IT IS MORE THAN THAT! :) GO FOR IT!!



6 comments:

  1. Cool review. I own this card. This review is perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  2. nice review
    its far better then any other memory cards at this budget. Transfer speed is good and so is the build quality of the card.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gracias por el cumplido en mi opinión y por su aporte!

      Delete
  3. Sturdy Performer

    I am using this product with my Sony XPERIA Neo V since last 15 days and have no issues by any means what so ever.
    Can give u a write speed up to 9Mb/sec for large files and on average 7Mb/sec for any kind of multiple files where as SDHC class 4 card can only give u a max of 5Mb/sec.
    You will sure notice a significant performance boost up for media contents and opening up large files but if you are using it for game play boost up, so you are wrong my friends because game performance is dedicated to the processor and the GPU, may HD games have different story.
    Geek tips for all Android fans if u really want a performance boost up for games too, then
    1. Always close apps like Viber or Whats App and Skype that constantly running on background and eat up you processor, use a p like "Easy Task Killer Advanced" by 2Easy Team to automate this job.
    2. Reboot ur phone once a day.
    3. If you a serious performance geek close your data traffic too because games uses internet for adds and does eats up battery and processor more than a game does.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gracias por la examen amplio en mi opinión! Tiene un gran día!

      Delete

Hey! Thanks for your time here. I would love to hear from you!