Customer Reviews

SimpleTech STI-CF/256 256 MB CompactFlash Card

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I just bought the Simpletech 256MB compact flash card for my Canon Powershot S30. I just popped the card in and it worked without the need to format it or do anything else. The write speed does seem faster than that of my backup card (128 MB Sandisk). I have not yet tested the read speed with my compact flash reader, but my Sandisk card was fast enough for me at that, so I don't expect much of a difference with the Simpletech card.

I bought the card to increase my image storage space, and based on the reviews I have read here, hopefully increase the speed of my camera in use. I tested the card using the high-speed continuous shooting mode on my camera. With the image resolution at its highest and the jpeg compression at its lowest, I could get off 5 pictures (indoors, ISO 400, no flash) before the camera buffer had to write to the card. This was no different than the performance with my Sandisk card, as it is dependant on the camera's internal memory as I understand it. However, I needed only wait about a second until the camera was ready to shoot again, a noticeable improvement over the Sandisk card.

In my limited test, I also shot a 30 second movie at 320x240 resolution. Again, the Simpletech card performed well, and after the movie completed, I experienced a very short wait until I could shoot again. The write speed of the card seems up to the claims of the reviews.

I recommend this card for its price, capacity, and speed. I also recommend Amazon.com. This was my 3rd or 4th order from them and I have been impressed with their service each time.

I've read many reviews about Compact Flash card speed and a couple of them here on Amazon. I read one review that listed some very high speeds for other brands, above 8000 kb/s. I don't know where that data came from, but in independant photo review sites, this SimpleTech card screams. No other brand was faster. By the way, no brand has ever tested in Camera's that even came close to 8000 kb/s or above.
Most CF cards test in at around 2000 Kb/s, some well known brands(SanDisk and Lexar) are at 800kb/s not 8000!!!! If you really want the truth, no card does well in Nikon's. They read at one bit, other cameras,Canon, Minolta etc read with 4 bits, are more advanced and produce superior results with both read and write speeds. The more advanced Camera's do make a difference. Check out independant reviews first, before you buy a camera or a card for your camera.

UPDATE: Well, I got it a few days ago and took some test shots with it on my Canon A40, plus tried both it and a more expensive SanDisk (128mb) card with the SimpleTech USB CF reader. I really didn't see a significant difference. Both were plenty fast in the camera and in the transfer. I cannot find fault.

I'll stick by the words below. You need to do your homework because some cameras don't work well with all cards, but if you've got a Canon, this baby works great.

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After reading the reviews, I decided to see if someone had tested a variety of cards. I found a good review at Digital Photography Review. They tested various high-capacity cards (512 mb range) in various cameras.

Yes, the Simpletech is one of the slowest cards in a Nikon 995. It came in at less than half the speed of a Lexar 16x. On the Canon EOS 1D and D30 as well as read/write tests on a firewire (IEEE 1394) card reader, the SimpleTech card beat the Lexar 16x every time.

It's not easy to pick the best CF card for your particular camera because there aren't good established benchmarking standards and what works great in one camera can be a dog in another. But from what I've seen in terms of people testing the SimpleTech, though it doesn't work well with Nikon, it works great with a lot of other cameras.

I've ordered one and I'll update this review when my Canon A40 and Simpletech 256 come in. For now I'll give it 4 stars so as not to distinctly affect the rating in one direction or another.

...and I'll take it! A 256 meg card in my Canon S100 set to its default resolution got a reading of 1578 shots available! That's an incredible amt of space and for someone heading off on an extended trip. I have been following CF costs on a dollar-per-meg basis for some time, and while the newest & largest cards have tended to carry a premium, this one does not. It is under fifty cents per meg, less than 1/4 of what it cost per meg only 18 months ago!

Card works but is VERY slow. These are the numbers obtained
with PCMCIA adaptor on my Linux box:

SimpleTech 256MB: write 2749KB/s read 1135KB/s
Mr Flash 128MB: write 9703KB/s read 5065KB/s
Sandisk 64MB: write 8831KB/s read 2319KB/s
Lexar 16MB: write 15636KB/s read 2044KB/s

Don't buy it if you:
a) want to take multiple-shot pictures (like best picture mode
in Nikon)
b) have high resolution high quality camera (storing 5Mp
TrueColor photo may take 6 seconds in uncompressed/raw mode!)
c) you want your pictures to transfer to your PC quickly and
you have USB2/PCMCIA/firewire CompactFlash reader.

d) you use slide adaptor in high resolution mode - files
then have 10MB and it takes 5s!!! to write them to this card

Bought this for my new Canon A70.

Works very well. No complaints, no errors.

I also have a Kingston 256MB Cf card. Both work well. But i seem to get longer battery life with the Simpletech.

Got my rebate cheque within one month of posting out.

This item says "low power consumption", which got my attention because I have a Zaurus--a great handheld, but with lousy battery life. So I did some digging to find out how low. According to their respective Web sites, this SimpleTech card takes 25 milliamps if used in a 3.3-volt device (such as the Zaurus), or 40 mA in a 5V device; the Lexar high-speed card (ASIN B00005U0HU) takes 50 mA at 3.3V or 65 mA at 5V. "Well," I thought, "OK, the Lexar has twice the power drain; but, if it's is twice as fast, then that'd make up the difference, because it'd be taking that drain for half the time, right?" (Not entirely true, by the way; if the device can't keep up with the faster card, then it won't be twice as fast.) But then I found the speed specifications for the SimpleTech: it runs at 10x (1.5MB/s), compared to the Lexar's 12x (1.8MB/s). So, the Lexar takes twice as much power to run 20% faster.

How much difference will it really make? Well, in my case, not a lot, probably. The main thing I use the CF card for is for storing Ogg files (like MP3, but different); some back-of-the-envelope calculations from published battery life tests suggest that, even with the backlight off, a Zaurus playing Ogg is drawing 791 milliamps. Cutting 25 mA off of that makes very little difference: 148 minutes instead of 144. But, still, 4 minutes is 4 minutes; if that last bit of power makes the difference between getting my next calendar alarm and not, it's worth it.

Plus, if you're talking about a device with smaller power requirements--say, an MP3 player--then saving 25 mA could make a big difference. And, for an MP3 player, you'll never notice the difference in speed, since even a 1x card is far faster than you need to keep up with the bitrate of any MP3 file.

I bought this SimpleTech card in early 2003 and have had great results with it. I have shot over 34,000 pictures on it using my Canon PowerShot G3. I use it extensively with my Dell X5 PDA. For the last month, I have been using it in my new Nikon D70 (over 5000 pictures so far from that). I originally paid about $60 for this card.

The card has never failed me. I have given it extreme use. I also have a 256 MB Sandisk card (it failed me once, and I had it replaced under warranty) and a 256 MB Viking card. I had read a review that the Viking card may not be compatible with the G3, so I never used it in that camera. I used the Viking card only in my Canon Powershot S400. However I did use all three cards in my PDA and in the S400. I have used the SimpleTech and the Sandisk both in my D70, as well as a new Sandisk Ultra II 1 GB card.

By comparison, the Sandisk 256 MB card was definitely the slowest when performing the same tasks. It could not keep up with mp3 playback on my PDA. It has noticibly slower write times for photos on my cameras, especially the G3. The SimpleTech and the Viking cards perform about the same as each other. Neither has noticeable slowness on my PDA. Photo write times on the G3 were acceptable with this SimpleTech card. It really did not cause a delay in shooting dut to waiting for pictures to write to the card.

Interestingly, on the D70, this SimpleTech card still keeps up well. The D70 has an advanced buffering system that can hold several (about 12 at normal quality full resolution) images while writing them to the card. This is so much buffer that rarely so I have the need to exceed this many shots in one burst. Thus, when I am using the SimpleTech card, it really does NOT slow down my shooting at all.

By comparison, I do notice that the D70 finishes writing pictures to my ULTRA II card sooner, especially after a burst of several frames. (based on the blinking light that indicates CF card activity) I really never have the need to shoot a continuous burst of frames all the way to a full 256 MB card.

My conclusion is that this 256 MB SimpleTech card is just about the best way to go for CF memory currently. It will cost you less to buy 4 of these (1 GB) than to buy one 1 GB Ultra II card. And then, if you have one of these fail, you will not be out of memory at a crucial time - because you have 3 other cards to use. And you would be able to get a replacement for the failed card later at your convenience.

I highly recommend using multiple smaller cards over single larger cards. 256 MB is my size of choice, and this is my choice among inexpensive 256 MB cards. At the current price (around $20 at the writing of this review) you can't go wrong!

I read the reviews on this card and bought it. On my Nikon 995 it is NOTICEABLY slower than [other] cards. In particular, the "writing to card" icon in the camera's monitor, which I never saw with the other cards, is always there after taking a picture with this card.

I'm hoping that this is not a Terrible Thing, since I don't often take many pictures one right after the other, and the camera DOES have a memory buffer. But instinctively I wish I had sprung for the extra [$] and gotten a faster card.

I tried this compact flash with my Canon S40 camera and found that it was provided plenty of room for pictures. This card performed faster than the CF card provided by the camera. I'm very satisfied with it. I get about 220 shots on a 4 Meg medium resolution format. There is minimum lag time between pictures. I did find that having a CF card reader is a lot faster and loading and unloading pictures from the card.