Customer Reviews

SanDisk Ultra SDHC 4GB SD Memory Card (SDSDRH-004G-A11, US Retail Package)

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have been using Sandisk Ultra II Compact Flash and Secure Digital in my Canon 1DMkII bodies for more than two years. Canon recently upgraded the camera firmware so it is compatible with SDHC. I found out Sandisk had produced an Ultra II version of the SDHC at 4GB. The performance is equal to the Ultra II SD I have been using. It reads and writes at stated speed. Despite the information in the Amazon listing for this product it is NOT a class 2 card. It is much faster.

If you like the Sandisk Ultra II 2GB SD card you will like this card as well. The addition of a USB card reader is a very nice touch as there are not too many of these readers on the market yet.

I've had the card for a few weeks now and used it to take over 900 pictures and a total of about 5 minutes of video. It has worked flawlessly. Obviously, a lot depends upon your specific camera, but in my Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 there is a fast recycle time and the video is smooth. It does get a little warm, but that is typical of these high-capacity cards.

The Ultra vs Ultra II discrepancy bothered me, too, when I received mine recently. However, after some Googling I found that SanDisk has modified the names on some of their product lines. If you go to their Web site, you'll find there is no longer an SD "Ultra II" card, it is now just the "Ultra", with a redesigned label matching the card sent to me. It still has the same SanDisk part number as before, though (SDSDRH-004G-A11), and the same specs. The label also still indicates it's a Class 4 SD device. As far as I can tell from Web posts (not many), it is only the name that has changed.

This change needs to be noted in the item description/photos so that customers are not confused by it.

When I tested it in my camera the card had no trouble keeping up with continuous video (standard def). Do note that this is an *SDHC* card, so make sure your device is compatible before purchasing it.

Works great in my Canon sd800 IS. Keeps up with the 640x480 30fps video just fine and I like the little USB Micromate. It took a long time to transfer my 3.5GB video from the card to my machine but it didn't bug me too much - Maybe 7-8 minutes.

The Sandisk Ultra II SDHC I received is a Class 4 card, not a Class 2. I think the product page is wrong -- either that, or I don't know what happened. Anyhow, SDHC cards come in three classes, according to their speed performance: 2, 4 or 6, 2 being the slowest and 6 the fastest. A class 2 is already faster than a regular SD card. If your device is compatible with SDHC, go for it because the speed difference is noticeable. In my case, the camera writing speed is a lot better than with the SD (but a bit slower than with a class 6). And the convenience of having 4Gb of space in your device is unbeatable! I've had no problems with this card in my new camera, and the card reader that ships with it is a necessity: older card readers can't read SDHC (not even the built-in reader in the laptop I acquired last February can do it). No issues for me between the reader and Windows XP. So far, both the card and the reader have been reliable.

I did quite a bit of research and found that there was not much sense buying a huge capacity card since shooting with a 4 Gig card in jpeg gave me a bit more than 500 shots. The read/write speed of 15 mb/s is totally sufficient for a camera that takes 3-4 frames per second in continuous shooting mode. There's a tendency for some folks to want to buy the biggest and fastest cards only to find that the specs exceed the camera's ability to capitalize on the speed and features of the card. You end up spending a lot of money for something that you really don't need. This is a great value for the money and by buying several, I don't end up with all my eggs in one basket in the unlikely but tragic event that the card somehow was corrupted.

The card works great in my new 10 MP Pentax A30 camera. I did have some difficulty getting the reader, that comes with the card, to connect properly to my Windows XP Pro computer. This card can not be read in a standard SD card reader. You have to use the included reader or an SDHC reader. It took about half hour to get this reader working, but now that it is installed and working on my computer, it works consistently and well. (by installed I mean, my computer found and properly self installed what ever it needed to make this an active device. I had to reboot several times and it was really a pain. I wound up buying a new media reader that included the new sdhc format).

Some of the issues I've run into are: 1. if I'm at a party and take photos and I want to share them with friends, they can't read this card in their standard card reader. So I have to carry card reader with me all the time. 2. Since it was so hard for me to install, it worries me connecting to the computers of others. 3. I lost all other USB and firewire external devices trying to get this reader to work. I've had to unplug the reader and reboot the computer to get the original devices working again, it's embarrassing and 4. I'm concerned about messing up other peoples computers.

So until SDHC card readers become more popular, I've gone back to using my standard 2GB SD card, and carrying the new 4GB SDHC card as a back up.

This Will Not Work with Most SD devices on the market already. Your device MUST HAVE SDHC CAPABILITY. Normal SD devices are not compatible. In that case 2GB is your largest option.

Over time I have really come to appreciate the quality and speed of SanDisk products and this SDHC card is no exception.

It works perfectly with my Treo-680. The "EP Memory" brand 4GB card I purchased prior to this card does not! I sure got snookered on that investment. Never again! The card was bad and apparently their 5 year warranty means nothing.

Anyway back to the Sandisk 4GB card. It works perfectly and the inclusion of a USB SDHC card reader is wonderful.

Thanks again, Sandisk!

-Christopher Erickson
Anchorage, Alaska

I bought this item for my NIKON d5000 DSLR camera. I bought several sd memory cards but when I tried to take action shots in rapid fire mode some of the shots were missed. I researched the cause for this and found that the read/write speed was too slow. I began looking for sd cards with faster read/write speeds and this item is the highest quality at the lowest price that I found. I highly recommend this product to anyone who is looking for high quality at low prices.