Customer Reviews

Kingston 1 GB Secure Digital Flash Card ( SD/1GB ) (Retail Package)

5 star:		(170)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This item came in a package with my Pentax *ist DS - my first digital camera - and I wondered how others rated it and what the replacement cost would be. <shrug> Too bad I am the first to review it.

While Kingston has a mediocre reputation, I have had absolutely no problems with my 1GB card, it has worked flawlessly for four months and many hundreds of pictures.

The working volume (after formatting, device files etc.) is 980M and this is enough to allow me to take 94 shots of EXTREMELY high quality - ~2000x3000 pixels and ~10.2M per shot - or - over 2000 shots at the lowest quality! I would not hesitate to go on a two week vacation with only two of these cards.

The card physically is not much larger than a postage stamp and has a tiny slide that allows you to "lock" it, so that no pictures will be erased.

I use an inexpensive card reader (USB 2.0) and can load 500MB into my computer in under ten minutes, so the speed is good.

I am very pleased.

Steve

I bought this card and a 150x 1GB secure digital card for video on my Canon SD-450. I noticed no difference when taking pictures or video when using this 'slower' card. For the price I paid for the higher speed card I could have bough two more of these.

I want to emphasize this is just with my SD-450. Results may differ for different people (or newer cameras?).

While it's not one of the newer-better-faster models of SD, if you're looking to store data, use it in an MP3 player, etc. You simply can't beat the price-to-performance ratio on this little guy.

It works perfectly on my new SD-based MP3 player for skip-free performance. Transfer time was negligible (don't get me wrong it took a few minutes to transfer 1 GB of data, but not more than I'd expect for a 1GB {!} transfer; maybe 8-12 minutes? Probably less...)

Took me a while to figure out that if you format it as FAT the player only sees 512MB of space. Whereas if you format it FAT32 it sees 1GB, and uses a few MB for formatting purposes, giving somewhere around 982 MB free. More than enough for hours and hours of MP3 play time.

I'd assume this card would work well in basic cameras up to 2-3 megapixels. For higher megapixels you'll probably want to step up to a slightly faster card. But keep it Kingston. They make good products at excellent price points.

I've used their desktop valueram for a while without issue, and their SD cards are certainly no disappointment. I rate this a must-buy. Aside from which it's the only card I've seen no really negative reviews for from any source I've checked online (unlike some other "name brands" like SanDisk, Lexar, etc.), hence purchasing this one. Seriously shop it around and go to a few comparison sites that use ratings and reviews. The Kingston cards consistently get good reviews (or at least lack bad reviews), whereas the other brands are about 50/50, 60/40, etc.

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Addendum:
with a couple months' perspective: again, the card holds up well. I purchased the basic low-speed model due to price (appx $27/ea at the time). Works perfectly in my MP3 player, with the above formatting/space caveats. However, they've since dropped the price on the basic model to about $21/ea. At this price, for basic uses, I can see no reason why anyone would NOT buy this indispensable piece of peripheral equipment for cameras/MP3 players. I'm actually tempted to buy a few more for other purposes... The price for a 50x 1GB Kingston is now about $24, well worth it for newer faster digital cameras able to utilize the faster speed memory (though you may not see any increase on older cameras). Not sure what the 133x 1GB cards run, I'd guess not much more than about $35-40/ea, which would be reasonable. I'm just going to wager a guess you'll even get better $$/performace ratio out of two of the 50x 1GB Kingston cards than you'd get uot of one of the 50x 2GB cards, if you don't mind carrying 2 cards. And it might also increase compatibility slightly, since I don't know how many cameras support the larger cards yet?

Again I reiterate the basic model is good for uses where speed doesn't matter like memory cards for MP3 players that are just reading the data off a little bit at a time. But, if you need faster speeds for newer cameras using rapid shutter speeds or real-time video, you'll probably want to step up to the 50x or 133x version for a couple extra dollars, if the camera supports it. Or even step up to the 2GB cards if you're using 4-6+ megapixel resolution photo settings on a regular basis.

I have been using this card in a Palm T/X to store photos, program files, and mpeg4 video files. It's worked well with no problems.

The cards does everything it's supposed to. 1 GB seemed like a lot when I purchased it, but now I'm back, looking for more memory...anyone who has just upgraded their camera and is going to be shooting in higher resolutions (especially if they're considering shooting in RAW format) might want to consider a larger card.

This Kingston 1 GB Secure Digital Flash Card ( SD/1GB ) (Retail Package) is on the low end of capacity being sold right now. However, it's such a great value. No need to worry about SDHC compatibility here. Works with all SD devices and computers with appropriate memory card readers.

The only knock on this card is that it is somewhat slow. However, at this price it's still great as a spare.

This card is pretty widely compatible and will work in your Kindle and your Wii alike. Like I said, pretty much any camera that accepts SD memory will accept this one, though there are better and higher capacity cards available for newer cameras with wider support.

So if you have a really high end camera you will want to spend more for a bigger one. But if you need an extra memory card for your Wii, digital camera (Canon, Nikon) or PDA, this is a good one to get.

Enjoy!

Bought seven of these cards (SD/1GB) as they were on Special Offer. Wanted to use them to store my (quite vast) record collection which I had digitised into 128kbs MP3's.

Wrote a total of 250 songs to each card, no problems. I can plug the cards into my laptop and play the songs, no problems. However, when i play the songs on my Car Radio (which has an SD slot) I'm finding that many songs randomly stop playing and the next song starts. I also have a couple of 256MB Tosh cards, a 4GB unbranded and 2 SanDisk 1GB; none of these cards have a problem but all 7 Kingston cards have the issue.

I beleive it is probably a timing issue. The Car Radio is a poor quality one (Tedelex - not renown for their quality products) and therfore the communication with the SD Card is probably very close to the limit of a timing-related specification; if the SD card is close as well then there will be a problem.

In 99.99% of applications the SD/1GB card will be fine (it works great on the laptop), but if being used on a lower-quality system then there could be problems. Not going to throw toys out of the pram and pledge never to use Kingston again, but probably wont quite put so much trust in them and bulk buy without trying first.

The Kingston 1GB chip was good for my Digital Camara and at the good $$$
George

This is a name-brand, reasonably priced and perfectly adequate SD card. I wondered if it would keep up with my camera, especially for movies...and it does. No discernable time-lag. It is a good option for any SD camera. I am quite satisfied.

I've purchased several Kingston SD memory cards over the past 9 months for my Canon SD600. When I switched over to the SD format from the smartcard I was pleased at how reasonably priced they were. Ar first I was leary about straying from the popular Sandisk brand card but the cheaper price of the Kingston cards made me give them a try. Now I feel great about the Kingston name. Their cards have worked flawlessly, in fact the only cards I've had trouble downloading from were some Sandisk ones I still have. I also love my TravelLite card reader (Kingston)...it's great. Highly recommend their cards, only ones I shop for right now.