Customer Reviews

Olympus 128 MB SmartMedia Card

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4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The only difference between the Olympus and other brands of SmartMedia cards is that only the Olympus SmartMedia card supports the Panorama function of the camera (see owners manual for details, but basically it allows you to stitch up to 10 images together into a panoramic image). If you never use this feature just buy the less expensive memory. If you have a need for panoramas, and already have one Olympus card, use that Olympus card for panoramas, and buy the less expensive SmartMedia cards for all your other photo needs. As an example, on Amazon, the Viking 128MB card is ... cheaper than the Olympus.

SmartMedia is sold under several brands. Olympus branded SmartMedia allows you to take "panorama" shots. Essentially, you take multiple shots while making sure to overlap edges. You then reassemble these multiple shots using the "Camedia" software that came with your Olympus camera. The difference is that when an Olympus brand SmartMedia card is used, your digital camera keeps exposure settings constant across these multiple shots; which makes for a consistent panorama when you reassemble the individual shots via your computer.

This is a nice feature, but not a feature most of us use often; for example, on a recent two week trip, I took 220 shots of which only 12 were panorama. If you are going to purchase multiple SmartMedia cards, you might be able to do with just one or two Olympus brand cards - especially since they cost more than other brands. I use two other brand SmartMedia cards, and save my Olympus brand cards for when panorama shots present (since you can switch the cards out at anytime - unlike traditional camera film).

Also to realistically determine what the price premium is, check prices for Olympus and other brand SmartMedia not only here, but also at other popular commercial sites.

UPDATE: See end of review.

I bought this SmartMedia card many months ago (right after it came out) but I waited to write the review because I wanted to have some real experience with it first. I'm very satisfied with this product and I highly recommend it. Here are some comments that you might find helpful in the decision-making process. Some of these are answers to questions I originally had, but learned the answers to after using the project.

First, I required a SmartMedia card with lots of memory and support for the "panorama" function of my Olympus C-2100 digital camera. (This function guides the user through taking multiple pictures, panning slightly to one direction after each picture. The photos are automatically "stitched" together by the Olympus Camedia Master software that comes with the camera.) I also wanted a card that would work with my Creative Nomad MG MP3 player, but when I bought it I wasn't sure it would be compatible.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Thin plastic card with gold contacts. Measures 45mm x 37mm x 0.76mm. Weighs in at 1.8 grams. The package I got included a small, clear, medium-hard plastic case and a thin soft plastic sheath. Also included a label and a write-protect sticker. Apparently it offers a tolerance of one million program/erase cycles and zero-power data retention up to 10 years.

STORAGE: At 128MB, this card provides a great deal of storage space - the most to date (Sept 2001) of any SmartMedia card. Olympus was one of the first manufacturers to release this capacity and they did so with full support of the "panorama" feature of the camera. As far as photo storage is concerned, it was the only card I needed for a 10-day Caribbean vacation. At (mostly) 1280 x 960 resolution, I fit nearly 500 pictures on the card before it finally filled up. Surprisingly, it stored more photos than the camera originally thought it could hold (when the blank card was inserted). Used with my MP3 player, it holds about 25 songs - not bad at all!

FLEXABILITY & USEFULNESS: I can use the card in both my MP3 player and my camera interchangeably. The Olympus camera stores photos within the DCIM folder (presumably meaning "Digital Camera IMages," but don't quote me on it), and MP3 files can simply be stored in the root directory. I can literally be listening to an MP3, switch the card to the camera to take a few pictures, then switch back to the MP3 player to keep listening. Also, with a reader like the Zio!, I can use the card like an external hard drive to store or transfer any type of file - this has proven VERY helpful in transferring large files between work and home - it sure beats waiting for a 128MB email attachment to download! In fact, this is probably the most useful benefit of the card. Just BE CAREFUL not to format the card - I haven't tried it, but I believe if it's formatted, you'll lose the support for the Olympus panorama function.

SPEED: Using my Zio! SmartMedia reader (USB), I can transfer files to and from the card at about 800k per second. Transferring the whole card takes less than three minutes. This is faster than I expected, but obviously not as fast as other media types like hard drives. Other readers may even transfer files faster.

PROBLEMS: On only one occasion when I transferred a photo from the card to the computer using the Zio! Card reader, about 50% of the photo was digital garbage, rendering half the photo not viewable. I've experienced this problem in the past when part of a JPEG image is corrupted. However, I don't know if this problem is a result of a glitch in the camera, the media card, or the transfer via Zio! to the computer. (I had deleted it from the card before I tried to view it on the hard drive - oops!) Regardless, with as much as I've used this card, I don't consider this one incident an indication of a real problem. Also, to use this card with my MP3 player required a firmware update, which was very easy to do with software downloaded from the MP3 player site. If you want to use this card in other MP3 players, be sure to check with the manufacturer on compatibility, and remember: DON'T FORMAT the card with your MP3 player because you'll wipe out the panorama feature that's loaded onto the card.

RECOMMENDATIONS: If you're looking for a lot of storage for a great price, plus computability with Olympus' "panorama" feature, then this is the card for you. I recommend getting a card reader like the Zio!, too, which will give you the added benefit and convenience of a tiny and very portable storage device. And I'd recommend this solution to ANYONE who has to transfer large files between two non-connected computers. Finally, if you don't need the panorama function, you may want to take a look at different brands (like Viking or SanDisk). Though this was the cheapest available when I bought it, I believe the other brands are quite a bit less expensive now.

I hope this information was helpful to you.

UPDATE Apr 2002: I have now had this SmartMedia card for over a year and I am still very pleased. Two more times I have had the problem I noted above, but I believe it is due to the camera and not the SmartMedia card. Still it happens too infrequently to be a bother. This card has come down considerably in price, but other brands still may be cheaper.

FYI: I was concerned that this 128MB Smartmedia card would not be supported with my camera Olympus C-3030Z. I called Olympus technical support at 1-888-553-4448 and George on 6/8/01 assured me that ALL Olympus digital cameras that take a 64MB Smartmedia card will also take a 128MB card. Technical support assured me that there are NO compatibility issues. The Olympus web site only lists compatability for cards up to 64MB, but the 128MB card is new and is fully supported while the chart is being updated. Olympus stuff is great!

I have an Olympus C-3000, and bought a 64MB Olympus card to go with it. Used it for a long time, never had a problem. When I wanted more memory, I bought a SanDisk 128MB card to save a few dollars. That thing has flaked out on me many times, and I've lost important photographs. Take the photos, and get home only to find that they are not there.

I'm going back to Olympus cards. Memory is not all created equally. (BTW, I also had a SanDisk USB memory card reader. That was a piece of junk too - the memory card got stuck and wouldn't come out! Their tech support said "Push down real hard on the card with the reader upside down and it will come out" - I kid you not! Stay away from anything those pinheads manufacture.)

Since Amazon sells the 128 Olympus Smartmedia Card at such a good price. I think it is well worth the extra ten dollars to have all the features of the camera work, rather than use a generic card. The 128Card has such a good capacity that it might be the only one you will ever need for normal shots. For fine shots it is essential!

If you are going to get a memory card, why get less than the most available, especially now that you can get 128MB for about [money amount] Soon more memory is sure to become available, but at this point I believe 128MB is the most you can find in "Smart Media Card" from Olympus, or even a generic card for that matter. This will give you almost one picture per MB, meaning that with the 128MB Smart Media Card you get well over a hundred High Quality (HQ) pictures. HQ gives you a very nice 5x7" photo at 300dpi. You can significantly reduce the about of memory used by the card if you decrease the size of each picture taken. For small pictures used to attach to emails you could conceivably get well over a 1000 pictures on the card by going from just over 3.9 mega pixels (HQ) down to just over 0.3 mega pixels (Normal mode on the camera) similar to the resolution of the first VGA monitors, reducing the memory usage by more than 1/10th. As far as buying the Olympus Card, I would recommend it, particularly if you are considering using the "panoramic" feature that "stitches" multiple scenes together to make a panorama using the software that comes with the Olympus digital camera. I understand that this feature is only available on the Olympus Smart Media Cards and now you can find Olympus cards at a comparable price to the "generic" brands. I have had no problems using the Smart Media Card from Olympus. I would recommend it highly. The only con that I can see won't come until they come out with a card with more memory.

Tangent to the 128MB Olympus Smart Media Card is their Card Reader. I opted out of that option, because the only benefit of it seemed to be the convenience of not having to plug your camera into a USB port. This in my mind is off-set by the inconvenience and exposure to damage of removing the card itself to put it into the reader, sounds like an excuse to sell "every available gadget" to me. So why not download directly from the camera? The only other argument in favor of the card reader is that it saves camera batteries, and although I'm getting slightly off subject here, it goes almost without saying that if you are using NiMH 1700 - 2000 mAh rechargeable batteries, which I think you will find is the best bet in the long run, leaving your camera on a few more seconds is immaterial.

I love my Olympus digital cameras (I now have two), and I enjoy having lots of room on the card and not having to think whether or not I've got the right card to do panorama shots. However, I use an external PCMCIA card reader to copy the picture files to my computer, and I recently made the mistake of copying some files from the computer back onto the smartmedia card. After that the camera would not recognize the card, and Olympus is unwilling to offer assistance. They say my card just got corrupted and I need to buy a new one.

You stick the card in your camera, and get the message "Card Error" Buying a new card is almost inevitable. I lost an 8mb, and had a 64mb card at the edge of the old round file.

What has happens, is that "Windows" formating has corrupted the smart media format on the card. This happens when you edit or delete files on the card thru a card reader attached to your computer. It is always a good idea to delete files, and format your card only in the camera. Otherwise you risk the "Card Error" message the next time you try to use the card in your camera.

The cards can be recovered, but only by recovering the original formatting. (...)
I had no clue what was being said here, but the breadth of what I read sent my 8mb smart media card to the trash.

When I lost my 64mb card to a similar error. I felt it was worth trying to restore the formatting. But the above web site had some OS restrictions and didn't seem to work without significant hardware, software, and knowledge. Seeing all the people with similar errors led me to believe that someone had to have a simple way to recover the card to it's original state. This is when I discoved WinHex. (...)

WinHex used a simple copy and paste editor GUI, and some conveneintly supplied DAT files to fix the "Card Error".
It is possible that other "hex" editors can do the same thing as long as you have the proper DAT file to replace the damaged file system.
Buying a new card is always an option though... : )

I bought two of these cards a little less than a year ago
and they worked great until recently. I had 160 images on
one card and when I tried to upload them to my Dell (which
I have done with success many times) I got
"Disk is not formatted." I tried uploading to an IBM PC
and got the same message. When I put the card into an HP
printer (that I have had success with in the past) I got
"Error on card." I was pretty depressed by this since the
images were taken over several weeks for a documentation
project. As a last effort, I tried uploading the images to
an HP computer, and that worked fine - so they were saved.
I tossed the defective card. I had in no way mistreated it.
This experience has taught me to upload my pictures more
frequently - you could lose a lot of valuable images.