Card sharp (Sandisk Ultra II 2 GB SD Memory Card)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	Sandisk Ultra II 2 GB SD Memory Card
Date:	23/10/09 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, reliable and inexpensive

Disadvantages: Those blister packs...

Memory cards are perhaps not the most glamorous or exciting of products to write about, but given how much they're used these days I think this category rather deserves a review! The SD card (and its successor, the SDHC card) has certainly won the battle to be the standard format used in compact digital cameras. Digital SLRs are still quite likely to take the larger CompactFlash format, and Sony continue to cling obsessively to their own proprietary MemorySticks, but the xD format is being slowly dropped by Fujifilm and Olympus, while the old SmartMedia cards are now really of interest only to collectors of old cameras.

SanDisk have long had a reputation for producing high-quality, reliable memory cards, and even their basic models (which are blue) uphold this... so long as you don't fall into the trap, as too many have, of being suckered into buying a startlingly cheap card on eBay which all too quickly proves to be a pirate copy. The same warning in spades applies with these Ultra II cards, whose main selling point is speed, and frankly I'd advise sticking only to trusted sources, whether on the net or offline, to obtain them. Prices these days are low enough that it seems a false economy to do otherwise: looking just now, I found that Play.com are selling these 2GB cards for £7.49 including postage, which I think is a fairly good deal.

Of course, the advent of the aforementioned SDHC cards means that you can buy much larger capacity cards than 2GB nowadays - though some older cameras are not compatible with SDHC, and in any case using smaller cards can have its benefits. On my seven-megapixel Canon PowerShot A710 IS, one of these cards will hold over 600 photos at the highest resolution and quality settings. How likely are you to take that many pictures at once? And even if you do - perhaps while on the holiday of a lifetime - is it really sensible to risk putting them all on one card? Spreading your photos across several smaller cards seems much safer, since it makes it much less likely that you will lose *all* your pictures even if something goes wrong. If you have a Canon PowerShot, you should also note that only SD cards, not SDHC, are fully compatible with the unofficial CHDK hack for adding extra features to your camera. Since speed is very important to use some of those extra features to the full, the Ultra II is an excellent choice for CHDK work.

Naturally the above advice only holds if your cards are good enough to take everything you can throw at them, and I'm happy to say that these are. I have never once had a photo corrupted while using one of these cards (yes, I'm tempting fate here!) and nor have I had any problems with transferring photos using either USB cables or card readers. Crucially, the Ultra II cards also live up to their billing in that they are very noticeably faster at writing data than standard cards from SanDisk or other manufacturers: their 9MB/second write speed is sufficient that I can happily use continuous shooting mode non-stop until the card is full, whereas a standard card has to stop for a breather after a dozen or so shots. This makes a huge difference when photographing animals, sportspeople or other fast-moving subjects.

Since the point of a memory card is that it spends its time inside your camera, questions of style and aesthetics seem almost irrelevant, but for what it's worth I think the mostly black colouring of these cards lends them a nice, professional look. They do unfortunately come sealed in those infuriating blister packs that penalise (and, given the need to slice them open with scissors, potentially injure!) legitimate buyers far more than they stop thieves, but I can't complain too much about that as almost every other brand of card comes packed in the same way.

As I said at the start, few people are likely to get excited by the prospect of purchasing a new memory card for their camera. Consider, though, that most people want above all a card that doesn't get in the way of their photography. That means one that is reliable and fast, and on both those counts the Ultra II card delivers.

Summary: My SD card of choice

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