Something to look forward to: Samsung has revealed a new generation of microSD and SD cards for everyday users and professionals that offer more durability than their predecessors. The 2021 lineup of Pro Plus and Evo Plus cards now have two additional layers of protection compared to previous-gen offerings, making them some of the toughest around.
Samsung's Evo Plus (64GB) is the top pick for the best value microSD card in our buying guide, where we praise its 100 MB/s reads and 60 MB/s writes and the fact it ships with an SD card adapter. That generation offers 4-proof protection: able to withstand up to 72 hours in seawater, extreme temperatures, airport X-ray machines, and magnetic fields equivalent to an MRI scanner. With the 2021 lineup, Samsung says both microSD and SD card families can also withstand wear out and drops, bringing the total layers of protection to six.
The Pro Plus microSD lineup is designed for professional users like content creators. As such, they offer read and write speeds of up to 160MB/s and 120MB/s, respectively, and will be available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities.
The new Evo Plus, meanwhile, is aimed at more casual users. They feature transfer speeds of up to 130MB/s, a 1.3x speed increase over earlier models. The cards will be available in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities.
It's not just the cards' internals that have been updated. Samsung has replaced the previous red and white colors with a reimagined Blue Wave design. As with the previous generation, an SD adaptor will be included with each microSD card.
Samsung's new Pro Plus and Evo Plus MicroSD cards arrive next month. Prices start at $18.99.
There will also be SD versions of the Pro Plus and Evo Plus cards that come with similar read and write speeds as the microSD variants. They feature V30 video speed class rating for 4K UHD content capture and are available in 32GB to 256GB (Evo Plus) and 32GB to 512GB (Pro Plus) sizes. The SD cards start at $8.99.