Sandisk Secure Digital SD 1GB 1024 MB

...the other was the faster SanDisk Ultra II brother.

Here I will compare the two.

---Use with a Camera ----
One of the most annoying things about digital cameras is the fact that you press the button to take the photo, and the photo is taken approximately 1 second after you have pressed the button. Sometimes you forget about the delay and you end up with smudged photos, or photos of your feet. You also get a delay ...
...I decided to purchase the SanDisk Ultra II card, why? Because it is a faster card and is one of the cheapest of the fast card brands.

The Ultra II chip did make my cameras take pictures faster, it let the camera take the photo then take another near enough immediately, however there is still the delay between taking the picture and taking the photo, however this to was a little faster. This is probably due to the cameras. However the ... more

I have purchased, two SD Cards from SanDisk, one was exactly pictured above, and the other was the faster SanDisk Ultra II brother.

Here I will compare the two.

---Use with a Camera ----
One of the most annoying things about digital cameras is the fact that you press the button to take the photo, and the photo is taken approximately 1 second after you have pressed the button. Sometimes you forget about the delay and you end up with smudged photos, or photos of your feet. You also get a delay after the photo has been taken.

I have a Nikon and a Kodak LS443, and both suffer from this problem.

I was told that the problem was due to the processing the camera has to do, and the amount of "Write Time" it took for the camera to write the picture to the memory.

To speed things up, I decided to purchase the SanDisk Ultra II card, why? Because it is a faster card and is one of the cheapest of the fast card brands.

The Ultra II chip did make my cameras take pictures faster, it let the camera take the photo then take another near enough immediately, however there is still the delay between taking the picture and taking the photo, however this to was a little faster. This is probably due to the cameras. However the time taken for the camera to allow me to take a second picture is much faster. (Rapid - Fire Shooting)

The Ultra II allows you to view your photos quicker on the camera's display.

1 Gb has enough storage space to hold at least one holiday's worth of photos.

---Use with a PDA ---
However when using in my PDA the real difference between my original card and this clearly was apparent.

Firstly installing software, this was much quicker, it used to take me 20-30minutes to reinstall all my files and programmes back to the PDA, it has reduced this speed to about 10minutes.

Running software; On PDA's you can run software from the card, when running from the card most software was "jerky" as you move around the screen, so it is best to run programmes from the internal memory, however with this card, the "jerkiness" had been ironed out.

One final thing about using this in a PDA, is Synchronisation, it's quick, and fast.

---Software---
The card comes with a mini cd, with some very useful software. This had saved my sisters engagement party photos, what happened is the Nikon camera took the photos, but when connecting to the computer the camera decided to move and delete the pictures on the card. Then the computer broke.

You would think all the pictures would have gone, but no, the software managed to recover the deleted files off of the disc, with ease. A reminder to use the "Secure Data" slider to avoid erasing.

---Specification---
Ability to hold;
Uncompressed Pictures
4Mp 107
5Mp 80
6Mp 67

Compressed Pictures
4Mp 538
5Mp 403
6Mp 336

Ultra II - 9Mb/s write 10Mb per second read speed. (USB 1 is 12Mb/s) that's 60-66 times the speed of sequential memory.

There are no details on how fast the normal card is, however compared to other manufacturers, they claim to be a little faster.

---Conclusion---
For just storing photos, I suggest this product. However the advantages of the Ultra II exceeds the need for buying this product, particularly if you are using the product in a PDA, as extracting files from the normal card takes quite a long time, the 10MB/second Ultra II card is far superior.

However the top of the range product from SanDisk being the Extreme III, with speeds of 20Mb/sec that's 133 times the speed. This however is expensive, and is really if you use data hungry software on your pocket pc, or if you are a professional photographer.

The addition of recovery software in the pack, make SanDisk worth the extra few pounds from the competitors.

Each card undergoes thorough testing and is guaranteed for 10 years.

Hello, many thanks for your comments for the SanDisk card.

Because prices keep changing, I initially did not include the price of the cards in the review. However I paid 75 pounds (should of cost at least double) for the Ultra Disk II back in January last year which you have to admit is a very good price. The company has now gone bankrupt!!

You can pick up a top of the range card (extreme III) for roughly the same amount, from the advertisers below or Amazon.co.uk

Expect to pay around 70 pounds for the ultra II, and expect to pay around 45 pounds for the normal card.

Basically the 45 pound one, is a very good price, but if you take quite a few pictures or intend on using the PDA, the Ultra II is much better. 

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