My recent purchase of a Nikon Coolpix S9300 compact camera did not include a data card so it was clear I would need to buy something suitable for the job. I read up on the recommended data card characteristics that would meet the needs of the camera. It isn't just a still camera; it also takes video at a full 1080p HD quality.

I looked at several brands and the Integral Ultima Pro Class 10 SDHC card stood out as good value for money. The Class 10 designation indicates that the card is rated at a minimum 10MB/s; Integral rates its product at 20MB/s.

I don't have any previous experience of this brand having previously tended to use Sandisk devices, so I didn't know what to expect. However, other reviews seem to suggest it would be a good choice. I chose a 16GB card as being a reasonable compromise for the camera, which has a 16mp CMOS CCD. Typically, pictures taken at this resolution and saved in JPG format, occupy around 3½MBs. I bought one from My Memory on Amazon for just over £7.

The first opportunity I had to really test out the capabilities of the card was on our recent holiday to Turkey, when I shot a video of my wife learning to water-ski. The video, which included a stereo sound track, is stored in QuickTime (MOV) format and proved to have recorded flawlessly. Playback on the camera itself was clear and jerk-free. The sound was clear and undistorted.

When I got home I also extracted the card and inserted it directly into my HP Pavilion D6 laptop and it was accepted and recognised immediately and played back with VLC Player for video and Irfanview for photos, without any trouble at all. I also got exactly the same results connecting the camera to the laptop with the provided USB cable.

Obviously it is still too soon to comment on the longevity of the data but with most data cards it is regular writing and re-writing of data that causes eventual failure of the memory rather than long-time storage. Nevertheless, if I eventually uncover any problems I will report back here.

As it is, I can thoroughly recommend this Integral Ultima Pro data card as suitable for purpose and good value for money.