Memory Card Buying Guide

By: David Rahimi

Memory cards/sticks let you store and share your media with many types of electronics. For example, they work with cell phones, cameras, camcorders, digital picture frames, mp3 players, GPS receivers, and much more. You can use one memory card for taking pictures on your digital camera in the morning, and view those pictures on the same memory card on your digital picture frame at night.

Memory cards are a great piece of technology but sometimes people accidentally buy the wrong kind or one that they don’t like. Below you will find a few things that our product specialists recommend our customers to look for when buying a memory card to prevent this from happening to you.

Compatibility: It heads the list for a reason, so make sure that whichever type of memory card you get is compatible with the device you plan on using it with. Usually the box or instruction manual of the device you plan on using it with will let you know which type of memory it takes.

Storage Space: Consider the storage space of the memory card before purchasing. If you get a memory card that has too little storage space to fit your needs, then you will have to go out and buy another one eventually, which will waste your time and money. Also, if you get a memory card that has too much space, your device may not be compatible with it. Usually, wherever you find out which type of memory a device takes it will also tell you the max storage size card that it is compatible with.

Card Adapters: You may want a memory card that comes with adapters so you can connect them to different devices. For example, you can get a micro SD card that comes with an adapter to work with a regular SD slot. This way, you can easily connect your card to your computer or printer’s media slots. Often times, only the SD slot is available on these types of devices so an adapter would be ideal if you plan on transferring that data straight from the card.

Read/Write Speeds: You may want to consider the read/write speeds of the memory card. Though it won’t effect whether or not the card will work with your device, it could be something that is of importance to you. Generally the higher the read/write speeds, the faster the memory card can transfer data.

Included Accessories: In addition to seeing if the card comes with any adapters (mentioned above), you might want one that comes with a good case. This would be ideal especially when you want to use more than one memory card with a device interchangeably. For example, you might take pictures with your digital camera and fill one of your cards up. With a case you can store that card away safely, and reduce the chances of losing it (because the case is much larger than the card).

Definitions:

Read/Write Speed: The rate at which an electronic device is capable of reading and writing data.