MicroSD cards are fiddly little blighters, but they're also useful little blighters which allow us to store masses of data in our mobile devices. Today i'm taking a look at the Transcend 8GB Class4 card which is available from amazon.co.uk for £3.99. I'm not going to get too bogged down in the usual debate of "how memory used to be so expensive and now it's incredibly cheap" - that's just the way things are - i'm sure in five years time there'll be a 100 zoggabyte card the size of a pinhead which costs only 35p; until then however, £3.99 seems like a very reasonable price to pay. Before you use the Transcend 8GB MicroSD Class4 card in your phone, you'll need to check the maximum capacity card that your mobile can handle - some still only allow a capacity of around 4GB.

Additional Features
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The annoying thing about MicroSD cards is the fact that you can't put them straight into an SD card reader when it's time to transfer your data (you need an adaptor first). Luckily, this particular MicroSD card comes with the adaptor, and it slips into it without any effort. Yes, it's still a bit of a faff having to put the MicroSD card into the adaptor, then the adaptor into a card reader, then the card reader into the computer (it's a bit like the Russian Dolls of the digital age) - but at least a free adaptor saves you having to go out and buy one.

Speed & Reliability
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The device is a designated as "class 4" - and if you're not sure about the class system, it's simply a way of determining the product's ability to sustain a certain write speed. In layman's terms, class four equates as the ability to write data at 4mbs per second - a speed which is perfectly suitable for transferring files without you having to wait around for too long. The only problem that may arise is if you're using the card in a hi-def video device which doesn't heavily compress data whilst recording - this may lead to a stoppage of recording or jerky playback due to dropped frames; to be honest it's unlikely to be an issue but it's something you should be aware of.

Final Word
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Overall I would highly recommend the Transcend 8GB MicroSD Class4 card as an excellent product which is available for a very reasonable price. The general reliability combined with the inclusion of a SD adaptor makes this a great investment for anyone who is looking to extend the memory capacity of their mobile device.