Customer Reviews

PNY 128 MB SmartMedia Flash Memory Card

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I purchased two of these cards for my Olympus C-4000. The card worked fine at first, but then after about a week of using one of the cards, I received an error message on my camera saying that the card needed to be formatted and I would have to erase all the pictures that were on the card.

Losing the pictures I had taken was enough to make me upset. When I finally accepted the fact that I was going to lose the pictures and tried to format the card, I received another error message that the card was completely unusable! I tried the second PNY card that I had purchased (for the very first time) and received the same error message that the card was unusable!

It should be noted that when I insert the SmartMedia card made by Olympus that came with the camera, I receive no error message and the card works perfectly fine. I'm going to purchase Olympus SmartMedia cards in the future. At least I know those will work properly.

I agree with the previous review. I also bought this card and used it on my Fuji 4700, but after several months of use, a card error comes up. I re-format as FAT or FAT32 and it will work by taking 3 pictures only, but will eventually come up with another card error. I also bought a Sandisk version and it did the same thing. I own 3 useless 128MB cards and the one I use now is a 16mb card that came with the camera.

After a couple of weeks of use, the card failed work losing all the pictures from a trip to Arizona. Attempts to format and stick into card readers have failed. For the record, my camera is a Fuji FinePix 2800 Zoom.

I am likely to think twice about buying another PNY product (I have a third video card by PNY which is adaquete but could be better).

How many pictures will it store? It is the most commonly asked question from digital camera enthusiast but usually the question that is the most difficult to get a straight answer about. Well, considering I worked in the memory industry for over 7 years I can help clarify this perplexing question and do so unbiased as I have since changed industries.

The PNY 128MB SmartMedia Flash Memory Card, like most 128MB cards, will store on average 142 pictures when used with a 2 megapixel camera, 106 images when used with a 3 megapixel camera, 64 pictures when used with a 4 megapixel camera, 51 images when used with a 5 megapixel camera, and 40 pictures when used with a 6 megapixel camera. These numbers are based off the assumption that you are going to shoot your images at the highest quality JPEG setting available for the camera and understand that they are estimates and may be off by as much as 10 percent due to numerous factors including the complexity of the scene being shot and the compression algorithm used by your specific camera.

I truly hope this review was helpful to you in determining whether this card is the right capacity for your specific needs.

Card works great on my Olympus C-4000 AFTER I formatted the card on a Dazzle reader (the Olympus would not perform this task). So far I've taken many dozens of pictures with great success !

Smart media cards seem prone to the error message, but I found that if you rub it lightly on the metal strip, it works well again. It's the price you pay when your camera doesn't use compact flash or SD cards. I use a Fujifilm FinePix 6800z.

I'm really surprised at the number of bad reviews for this product. I have a 16MB Olympus card that came with the camera (a D-550 zoom), a 64MB that I got as a bonus of some sort, and the 128MB PNY. I never use either of the smaller cards. I have taken at least 2GB worth of pictures over the past 2 years and only once had to reformat the card. That was because I pulled it out of the reader before it had finished writing. I am very careful to transfer any non-repeatable shots to my laptop, then to my desktop, where I keep a series of folders that I restrict to 600 MB. I burn these to CD-ROM about once a month, then delete everything off the camera card.
My only complaint is the transfer time, but this is the only type of portable media I use, so I don't know how it compares to other formats.

Although you can still buy SmartMedia at many locations as well as directly from PNY, PNY considers it to be an obsolete product and no longer honors their "lifetime warranty". Since PNY currently considers "lifetime" to be the commercial life of a specific product and will not offer any alternate compensation for defective "obsolete product", I cannot recommend purchasing any PNY product.

My Olympus camera uses the Smart Memory Flash Card, and I like to keep 3 or 4 cards so that I can organize photos and do not run out of space when I am travelling. One of my cards stopped working and I tried to find a replacement locally. I ordered one online and after several weeks,the vendor emailed that he could not supply it. Although I would have preferred a card with a greater capacity, the only ones that are available are 128 MB or less. Thankfully, Amazon was able to help me get two of these.

The Smartmedia cards came real fast and where a great buy have filled both up several times with photos and have had not one problem in downloading the pics to be printed or stored on line. A great find at a great price.