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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HIGH QUALITY, January 16, 2010
This review is from: HP 4 GB Class 4 SDHC Flash Memory Card L1878A#707-EF (Electronics)
I purchased this to get the free super saver shipping so it worked out to cost me about $1.50 instead of paying for shipping. However, estimated delivery was around 15 days? Doh! ;-)
Anyway, I wanted a card that was at least a class 4 to record HD video with my pansonic point and shoot camera. I've seen a lot of people argue about what the class of the card means and it's actual transfer rates so I thought I'd be safe getting one thats in the middle of the road. There are 4 classes, starting with 2 and ending at 6. Supposedly getting a class 6 doesn't always mean that it will perform better than say a class 2. The old way of classing these cards was to use the X factor. A 133X card would transfer about 20megs a second and so on but I've seen a 4gb usb stick that was 150x that transfered over 40megs a second. Even that way of classing the cards failed to hold up to the reality of benchmarks. So, if I'm going to write a review I may as well make it worth reading by doing some psudo-scientific tests and compare it to an older Crucial 4gb Class 6 card I purchased about 5 months ago. Technically the Crucial with it's mighty class 6 rating should blow the HP out of the water. We'll see.
To do the test, I installed the latest Sisoftware Sandra 2010 benchmarking software and gave these card the once over. Sandra is considered by many to be one of the best benchmarking software programs around! I conducted the test on my brand new Asus 1000HE Netbook which has a really nice SDHC card reader built in and running windows 7 premium. This is the true definition of a "real world test".
Sisandra comes with a large catalog of SDHC cards they tested themselves and this allows you to compare the results showing the best ones all the way down to the poorest performer. You can even compare your SDHC card to a sata hard drive or a 2gb usb flash drive. Whatever floats your boat. The test starts by transfering 512 bites and working it's way up to 512megs and it examines the speed at which it handles the constant stream of data going in and coming out.
My older Crucial 4GB Class 6 shows 2408 ops/minute with an endurance factor of 85.1%. This HP class 4 shows 2261 ops/min with an endurance of 95.3%. They tell me that higher numbers are better. As you can see, there is very little diffference between the Crucial and the HP except I paid about $25 for the Crucial. Both these cards are perfectly fine for ordinary applications and have enough bandwidth to handle at least 720p HD video from your digital point and shoot camera. Most digital cameras limit the recording to 15 minutes anyway, so if all you want to do is capture video with your point and shoot, then you should have good results with this card. Overall, both my cards are ranked #3 in the world of storage devices. If you plan on capturing 1080p HD video you'll probably want to invest more money in better performing cards. Othewise you might get dropped frames as you push the limits of these slower cards. That would create a stuttering effect in your video that you would notice as the camera pans back and forth. You do pretty much get what you pay for here but sometimes you pay double for something that doesn't deliver much more. The old saying comes to mind. "Caveat Emptor - Buyer beware!"
The fastest SD card was the 1GB Peak Xtreme which ran about 8000 ops/min. The fastest SDHC was a Toshiba 16GB which benchmarked at 4950 ops/min. Thats the kind of card you'll want for 1080p video because not only does it handle the bandwidth but it has a lot of capacity to capture those huge 1080p movie files. It won't take you long to fill up 16gb.
To give you a sense of perspective, the 80gb apple ipod transfers at 4422 ops/min. The Viking 1gb compact flash card can transfer at a whopping speed of 232 ops/min. and yes, Viking is still in business and even sell a 64meg SD card here on amazon. Must be useful for some kind of old technology like ancient gaming systems.
Hope this helps you decide what to buy! Take it easy!
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43 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It did what it was supposed to do, but it was more expensive than other and faster cards just as large., February 13, 2009
It did what it was supposed to do, but it was more expensive than other and faster cards just as large.
I was lent this card and another 32GB SDHC card which was a Class6, while this HP was rated as a Class 4 and in numbers it means the difference of a 26x speed versus 40x for Class 6 cards.
In many cameras it won't make a difference but in Nikon D series SLR's using RAW image mode, it makes a noticeable difference and the Class6 card enabled us to shoot more frames per second at high shutter speeds of 1/2000th seconds exposure and write them faster to storage.
Since this card cost just as much or more than the other offerings from TopRam TOPRAM 32GB CLASS 6 SDHC HIGH SPEED FLASH MEMORY CARD + USB 2.0 SDHC FLASH CARD READER #R3
And no name brands sold by Amazon OEM BRAND 32GB SDHC CLASS 6 High Speed Flash Memory Card (32 GB SD Secure Digital High Capacity Card, MAKE IN JAPAN) BULK + iFLASH Logo USB 2.0 SDHC FLASH CARD READER/WRITER for less.
You have to shop around for these cards since some are sold for larcenous rates like this one from Panasonic that is $280+ !!!!Panasonic 32GB SDHC Class 6 Memory Card (RP-SDV32GU1K).
I like HP products despite the fact the quality of their tech support has sank past the basement toilet, other flash RAM manufacturers won't even provide a phone number such as Transcend and Lexar tech support does everything possible to frustrate you to the point of defeat and just acceptance of a broken item.
Regardless of which SDHC brand or Class you buy, you have to determine whether or not your device is compatible with SDHC devices and these are typically cards that are 4GB and. larger.
The wider adoption of SD card format by manufacturers and the reasonable but incorrect assumption of consumers that any card that fits into the slot should be compatible is creating frustration for owners of PDA's and cameras who'd like to carry more MP3's on their iPaq or store more images on their camera without swapping cards or transferring to a PC.
There are Version 1.1 of the SD standard and Version 2.0 which supports SDHC, don't confuse Version 2.0 with Class 2 cards since Class is just speed categories.
Even if you have a Version 2.0 device / adapter, it still may not read cards larger than 8GB such as this flaw with Windows XP which wasn't fixed until ServicePack3 or HotFix KB934428.
Even 2003 Server has issues and it won't install the hotfix because of OS version checking but you can review the appended comment of this review for info on how to successfully install the patch.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good quality/price but not a top-speed champion (Class 4 does not mean 'fast'), February 19, 2010
HP's 8GB SDHC card appears to be one of the better buys at the time of this review, as far as price/performance/capacity is concerned. In my case, it fulfills the task assigned - store a large number of photos for an electronic picture frame to display. However, its relatively low write speed may NOT make it suitable if the intended use was in a camera taking large 'rapid fire' shots.
PERFORMANCE
I would like to note that I did not test the card with a camera but it's stated 'Class 4' speed class, which is the equivalent of a 26x speed rating should guarantee a MINIMUM of 4MB/s.
Unlike the 'x' ratings, the speed class ratings are NOT certified by an independent body so, more or less, you will have to decide whether you trust the card's maker. It so happens that I DID test the card myself and I found that I could copy 1.6 GB worth of photos in about 5 minutes. This is 5MB/s for writing on the card for the first time, indicating that the Class 4/26x claim is honest.
Practically, if you are going to use this card in a camera, depending on the quality of the pics you are taking, you may or may not be happy with its performance. At 12 megapixels, a 100% quality JPG would produce a 2-3 MB file so, without even counting the overhead, your camera will spend about half second, possibly more to write to the card which may or may not be in line with your own expectation. For better performance, look for a higher 'class' number 133x/Class 20, for example, should support 20 MB/s or writing up to 10 12-megapixel JPG photo files per second.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES/CONCERNS
The card comes formatted as FAT32 and my Vista Enterprise computer was able to write to it. If, for whatever reason, FAT32 is not what you need, you should be able to format it under Windows/Vista, Mac or Unix/Linux to whatever you may need.
Not ALL cameras support FAT32. Older cameras may only be aware of FAT16 and can't see any card larger that 4GB. If in doubt, check with the manufacturer or maybe read your camera's reviews at Amazon.
Related to the above - anyone who may have a device meant to use SD cards should be aware that SDHC may not work with it so it's better to ask the maker.
Finally, one nice thing about HP's card - it comes with a write-protect tab. If you are not using your card in a camera and want to prevent accidental writes, move the tab to the 'lock' position but, be careful, it will NOT work with your camera if you forget to move the tab back to 'unlock'.
RATING
This is a honestly rated Class 4 card. Class 4, as I explained, means SLOW so, if blazing-fast write speed is not an issue, this is probably what you need given the price and the maker's reputation - by the way, the card is manufactured in Japan.
For what it is, the card deserves 5 stars.
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