microSD Card Buying Guide: Classes, Speeds & What to Buy

[Julio Franco]

If it's been a while since you've bought portable flash memory, you might be surprised by the broad availability and affordability of high speed, high capacity microSD cards. Commonly used to expand the storage in devices ranging from smartphones to drones, microSD cards are becoming more frequently purchased than any other SD form factors, although full sized cards remain popular among digital camera owners.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/guides/1591-microsd-buying-guide/

 

[merikafyeah]

Also be very careful where you source your cards. The market is notoriously flooded with counterfeit Samsung and Sandisk cards in particular. Be sure to run a thorough write speed test on any new cards you buy to ensure you're getting your money's worth. If a card doesn't advertise any WRITE speed anywhere, I'd avoid them in general.

 

[tipstir]

Interesting review... As for me I've use these sizes so far. Class 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or higher, I have use PNY, SanDisk, SONY, Kingston, Transcend, Lexar brands. To me PNY, SONY, SanDisk have held-up longer than the rest. SD microSD, MicroXSD goes hand down to SanDisk you have pictured in this article. 64GB in my Motorola Moto Z2 Force is what I've been using since ZTE Max, ZTE ZMax Pro and LG G3. The Moto Z2 Force supports up too 2TB. Of course I have no plans on buying such card yet I will upgrade the cell to next model when offered on my lease. I do think spending more on larger card might come down in pricing. As memory has been on the rise lately. NAND is 64GB with ES at 64GB that gives me 128GB of storage that should be enough for me and most on cell phone. I can snap 4K photo and take video. Still again larger cards more space, quick bus speeds. MicroSD needs SD card adapter to work in your PC or tablet if you have full SD slot. XSD you need a special adapter for those to work in your desktop, laptop, tablet etc to use those faster class, bus etc. XSD 32GB Ultra and 64GB Ultra is the max sizes I've own. Got plenty of 2GB, 8GB, 16GB I've use to develop ROM and Apps for Android since 2010 to 2017. Gone through 40 tablets and 25 smartphones.

 

[Sir Alex Ice]

There is no reason to recommend just 2 brands for their microSD products. Samsung is not that great a brand as you would imply and Sandisk has since long outlived its glory days.

Unless you are a PRO shooting at least 4K video for a living, there will be no difference for the average user chosing ADATA, Kingston, Lexar or Transcend instead of Samsung or Sandisk. And not even then, because you would buy a highend model from either brand.

 

[fktech]

Buy the fastest card that fits your needs at the lowest price.

 

[Burty117]

Something that hurts, three UHS specifications (UHS-I, UHS-II and UHS-III) yet even the most modern Smartphone only support UHS-I. This is a bit of a frustration as it makes storing stuff on the SD card freeze or become very slow (Spotify cache, 4K recording from camera, TomTom offline maps etc...).

Why won't Smartphone manufacturers update to at least UHS-II? Or am I missing something? It literally doubles the speed.

 

[tipstir]

Also be very careful where you source your cards. The market is notoriously flooded with counterfeit Samsung and Sandisk cards in particular. Be sure to run a thorough write speed test on any new cards you buy to ensure you're getting your money's worth. If a card doesn't advertise any WRITE speed anywhere, I'd avoid them in general.

This so true but I never ran into cheap or fake SD or microSD cards yet. But I know some brands like Lexar will break on you when you lease expect it too. I use mostly brands I can get SanDisk been around for years. I used SONY 32GB card no issues with that. Lexar 16GB broke in half I was able to save data that card before it ended up in the trash pile. I don't use Samsung, I rather SONY over them.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Something that hurts, three UHS specifications (UHS-I, UHS-II and UHS-III) yet even the most modern Smartphone only support UHS-I. This is a bit of a frustration as it makes storing stuff on the SD card freeze or become very slow (Spotify cache, 4K recording from camera, TomTom offline maps etc...).

Why won't Smartphone manufacturers update to at least UHS-II? Or am I missing something? It literally doubles the speed.

Same reason they wont give us bigger batteries or software not tainted by bloatware and horrible UIs.

Because the common user doesnt know what UHS is. They want their facebook to work. Phone companies dont care what enthusiasts want.

 

[Uncle Al]

Kind of makes you wonder exactly how many of these companies actually make their own? I wouldn't be surprised to find out later that there are only a few and everyone else is just re-branding under their own label .....

 

[Burty117]

Because the common user doesnt know what UHS is. They want their facebook to work. Phone companies dont care what enthusiasts want.

The argument against this, Would be that they like filling up their spec pages to "one-up" the competition. I would have thought at least one manufacturer would have given UHS-II a go by now (I think asking for UHS-III might be a bit of a push).

I guess it's down to making the internal storage larger and faster so they're just slowly getting rid of the SD slot. It's a shame, I quite like it for storing Music and Photo's on and keeps the Internal memory space for apps.

 

[Kibaruk]

What would be the best budget card to go to for an average user?

 

[Kenrick]

Before, If it was manufactured in taiwan then its a high quality microsd. I wonder if that is still applicable today.

 

[dj2017]

It doesn't matter what speeds the microSD card manufacturer is advertising, when it comes to mobile phones and tablets. There are microSD cards that advertise sequential speeds of 100MB/sec and with small files they don't even manage 0.1MB/sec. Those cards in a mobile phone will be a huge disaster and a reason to throw the phone out of the window.
It's pity that this article doesn't explain this.

 

[toooooot]

The article could benefit from mentioning durability of the cards and technologies that are responsible for that. Samsung itself states that the card which was reviewed here wont be covered by the warranty if it was used intensively (like dash cam).
I found this article which expands on this subject here
https://www.carcamcentral.com/guide/recommended-sd-cards-avoid-sandisk-ultra-cards

 

[Carlos R]

What about the new "A" micro sd cards meant for android phones to run apps of of?

 

[SSA-Ed]

Faster SD cards made are by Lexar and Sony, 2000X = 300MB/sec, about 250MB/sec write. Sony makes an XQD SD card @ 3000X - 440MB/s 400MB/s read write respectively.
Search Amazon key words are: SD & 3000X, 2000X, 1000X or 633X.

 

[SSA-Ed]

What would be the best budget card to go to for an average user?

What size and for what purpose? Class 10 / UHF I and reasonable price and should meet all your phone or tablet requirements. I wouldn't own anything slower as it would limit its usefulness.

 

[Kibaruk]

What size and for what purpose? Class 10 / UHF I and reasonable price and should meet all your phone or tablet requirements. I wouldn't own anything slower as it would limit its usefulness.

It doesn't matter what speeds the microSD card manufacturer is advertising, when it comes to mobile phones and tablets. There are microSD cards that advertise sequential speeds of 100MB/sec and with small files they don't even manage 0.1MB/sec. Those cards in a mobile phone will be a huge disaster and a reason to throw the phone out of the window.
It's pity that this article doesn't explain this.

Thanks though.

 

[lostinlodos]

Before, If it was manufactured in taiwan then its a high quality microsd. I wonder if that is still applicable today.

While that was true years ago it doesn’t hold up today. Honestly go by the brand and warranty. I’ve had cards from China outlive cards from Taiwan by many generations, and just as many China DOAs. Where it comes from isn’t as relevant as who these days.

 

[JohnSSS]

"Carlos - What about the new "A" micro sd cards meant for android phones to run apps of of?"
Carlos hit the nail on the head.
I foolishly ordered 3 of the Samsung Evo Select 128GB MB-ME128GA/AM before I read the reviews.

 

[JohnSSS]

I forgot to mention - Note the Sandisk Ultra 400GB ~ $200 has the A1 designation.
Also the same A1 designation for the other smaller sizes.
But "Transfer speeds of up to 100MB/s" doen't guarantee anything else.

 

[Julio Franco]

Faster SD cards made are by Lexar and Sony, 2000X = 300MB/sec, about 250MB/sec write. Sony makes an XQD SD card @ 3000X - 440MB/s 400MB/s read write respectively.
Search Amazon key words are: SD & 3000X, 2000X, 1000X or 633X.

Those are SD cards, not microSD which this article is about. That said, we will add a note mentioning that if you want top performance on a SD device, you shouldn't use a fast microSD + adapter, but a true high performance SD card which is less space constrained.

 

[Angga B]

I've used many brands before. But this particular SanDisk 64GB model is very peculiar since I have two of them for both my phone and my wife's. In different timing both had suffered the same fate of error, I.e: the card suddenly stopped being able to write at all. No amount of brute force writing, deleting, formatting, even low level formatting can break it. Any previously written data seems to store permanently which is a relieve because no data lost occured, but the inability to use it to store any additional data or modifying is frustrating.

Luckily Sandisk prove their lifetime warranty works, I just need to send them the card along with the original packaging (mandatory by them, for no obvious reason) and within a week I can get the replacement card.

But now, those new cards are giving me the same headache all over again... WTH

Before anyone asking, me and wife we routinely swap our phone with newer one within yearly/biyearly cycle so all these behavior is not isolated to certain phone from certain manufacturers in the span of 4 years since we begin to use the cards.

 

[Sausagemeat]

Interesting. I’ve alwsys used SanDisk exteme for my action cams but will give the Samsung cards a try. I do need a few cards actually.

 

[MarkHughes]

I use one of these with an adaptor in my laptop to store music and videos on without taking up drive space. They are excellent for this kind of work I find. I don't need that slot so it may as well be made useful. Once full it is just read from, If I need to reinstall my drive or move to another machine they are all there ready for me.


I like to think in years to come that people will find old cards in landfills and be able to glimpse back on our lives, A bit like when old film is found and restored. I wonder how long they would hold data under those conditions ? Genuine question for anyone who might know...