Flashback (Memorex 64 MB CompactFlash Card)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	Memorex 64 MB CompactFlash Card
Date:	07/11/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reliable and cheap

Disadvantages: Small capacity, rather slow

Smaller-capacity CompactFlash memory cards are a bit of a niche category these days. Few if any compact digital cameras still use the format, partly because the cards are simply too chunky to fit into modern slim bodies, and while DSLRs continue to make use of it quite widely there's really no reason for those to use a card as small as 64 MB. However, for those interested in older cameras - some of which may not be able to cope with today's multi-gigabyte cards - they can still be of considerable use.

To put some hard figures to that comment about chunkiness, this card (like all CompactFlash cards) is 43 mm wide and 36 mm deep, as against a standard SD card's 32 mm by 24 mm. As a Type I card - much the most common - it is 3.3 mm wide; type II cards, including the remarkable if fragile Microdrive (an entire hard disk in the space of a memory card) are 5 mm thick, but are rarely compatible with lower-end cameras.

Memorex is a solid enough brand when it comes to electronics, though the company is no more than a bit part player in the memory card market these days, forced like everyone else to play second fiddle to the mighty SanDisk juggernaut. (Mixed metaphor of the day, perhaps?) The copyright date on the back of my card is 2000, which in this sector is not far off having giant Carboniferous-era dragonflies buzzing past, but if it still does its job then who cares? But does it?

The best camera I own that uses CompactFlash memory is a three-megapixel Canon PowerShot A75, one of the final generation before Canon joined the throng moving over to SD, so that's what I'm using to test this card. The A75 is a good camera, solidly built and a nice match for the chunkiness of this card format. That reassuring solidity is one of CompactFlash's greatest attractions, and a major reason why it is still commonly used in DSLRs. You do sense that one of these cards could take quite a beating and still manage to plod on, though thankfully I've never had to test this.

The design of the Memorex card is frankly rather garish: a confused mess of bright colours that brings to mind a child's toy rather than an electronic component. Putting the capacity figure in large print is good, but do we really need to know Memorex's web address? (It's now obsolete anyway.) The little arrow reminding users which way up to insert it is quite a good idea, at least. The back of the card is white with a small space for notes and the less than astounding information that the card was made in Taiwan.

The card inserts smoothly into the camera's card slot; there's none of the sticking or roughness you occasionally get with a very cheap (or, worse, counterfeit) memory card. In use, it performs quite adequately for everyday shooting, but it is not the best card to choose if you intend to use continuous mode, as it runs out of puff and has to wait for buffering after a mere five shots. In comparison, a SanDisk 64 MB card can consistently manage six: not a huge difference, but it's there!

I also tested the Memorex card's capacity: although the headline figure on such cards might be 64 MB, when formatted slightly less than this will be available. In this case, the formatted size was 62.3 MB, which on the A75 is enough for about 39 photos in the highest-resolution "Large Superfine" mode and 112 in "M1 Fine", the lowest I'd be likely to use. Interestingly, that's a little better than the SanDisk I mentioned, which offers only 60.9 MB, with room for an estimated 36 and 104 photos respectively in the two modes.

Crucially, the Memorex card has proved reliable over a fairly long period of time, being used in more than one camera. I've never lost a photo from it (touch wood!) and it's never become "confused" either to the extent that I've had to reformat it. Of course 64 MB is a tiny capacity by the standards of 2009, and I wouldn't recommend using such a small card for a camera with a higher resolution than three megapixels, but there isn't really anything wrong with this if you have a camera that complains about large-capacity cards. Expect to pay £2-3 on eBay for one.

Summary: If you don't know why you'd want this, you won't - but if you do, you might!

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