Customer Reviews

Viking CF512M 512 MB CompactFlash Card

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

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 Viking CF512M 512MB CompactFlash Card, like most 512MB cards, will store on average 568 pictures when used with a 2 megapixel camera, 426 images when used with a 3 megapixel camera, 256 pictures when used with a 4 megapixel camera, 204 images when used with a 5 megapixel camera, and 160 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 512MB card is the right capacity for your specific needs.

I really wanted to give this unit a good review because I really liked having the 512 megs available.

I've owned this card for the last 5 months and have been going back and forth with Viking to get it replaced. They are very efficient at giving a replacement but I have recieved defective replacement units twice so far and have been without it's use for almost two months. I paid twice what it is today which doesn't bother me (technology speed).

The replacements have not accepted any data beyond 58 meg and then crashed, no matter which computer, which CF reader, My laptop or PDA, it doesn't work and now I am frustrated. All my 256 meg Sandisk, Mr Flash and Kingston work fine. If you want a reliable CF card I think you may want to look elsewhere.

I think a lot of people will give this thing 5 stars cause it holds a lot ... but you know that already, and it's absurd to write about that. So I'll just get this out of the way - yes, this card is 512 megs. Yes, it holds a lot.

Now as for it's quality... I use this card in my Powershot S200 digital camera, and have had some problems with it... occassionaly, it has caused the camera to give an error when it starts up. The card seems to go through 'bad streaks', in which every picture I put on it gets corrupted, for maybe 10 pics in a row.. then it works fine again. Besides this problem, I probably lose 1 in 200 to 300 pictures due to data corruption.

Personally, I take several pictures of any given object, and if one gets lost, it's no big deal. So this occasional data loss has not really been a problem for me. If the pictures or data you will store on this *are* very important, you may want to think twice before buying a Viking.

I have also used this in my Sharp Zaurus, and it has never caused any problems there.

I'll give it 3 stars because most of the time it works fine, and the problems i have had with it haven't been anything serious.

I've had three Viking Compact Flash cards now that I've used with two cameras: a Canon Digital Elph S330 and Powershot G5. Although people have reported seemingly higher-than-average failures and errors with Viking's cards, neither of my 128MB cards or the 512MB I have for my Powershot have ever had a problem.

However, Viking doesn't exactly make the fastest cards on the market; higher resolution camera users will find the limited (1.5 Mb/s) transfer rate way too slow unless their cameras have a fairly large buffer; users needing exceptional speed may be advised to purchase a Sandisk Ultra II card (or better). Still, Viking's cards are an exceptional value for the price.

Before buying this card, I read some reviews on how great this card was, I read some reviews on how horrible this card was. I was attracted by the price and bought this card. The warranty sounded great so I took a gamble. I totally regret this purchase. I've been losing 2-3 pictures for every 300 pictures I took and this is consistently a problem. I've tried to contact Viking for weeks with no response. Either they are back logged with many many calls requesting a product replacement or they really don't care about customer service. Viking really has poor quality products. I used SanDisk and no problems encountered. I'm taking the time to write this review for those on the fence about purchasing any Viking products. I would stay away. If their website is any indication of their attention to quality and detail, it crashes when you try to get "Live help", or click on "Feedback" links. When you try to process an "Online Product Replacement", it forces you to enter zip codes to USA when customers such as myself are Canadian.
They really make you jump through hoops to get your product fixed. I'm still jumping. Wish me luck and I hope you are much luckier than me if you plan on purchasing Viking products.

Summary: I had a great deal of trouble with a Viking 512 MB compact flash card, Viking was very helpful in replacing it with two 256 MB cards, but now the only 256 MB card I've used thus far has corrupted data as well. I give Viking tech support manager Patrick Beard 5 stars, he was very professional. However, the product quality rates only1 star. Average 3 stars. I did get my money back after shipping back the cards.

Details: In early December, just before a big overseas family vacation, I purchased one Viking 512 MB card, and one SimpleTech 256 card. The Viking card was the first one I used, and there were no problems for one week. Then one photo I took showed as a very small image with the caption CF CARD ERROR. I had no idea what this meant at the time and in fact the camera/card seemed to repair that image one hour later. Several days later I noticed a couple of images that were previously fine and now show CF Card ERROR. I had already taken over 300 photos on this card at this point and was concerned enough to switch to the SimpleTech card and took 200 photos on that card for the rest of the trip.

After coming back into the US, the Viking card would not upload the images into the computer. By the way the camera is G3 and the computer is high end new Dell running XP. The only method I finally got the images into the computer was using Windows explorer. Then I realized 60 images were missing. Viking was very helpful. I shipped them the defective card, and they shipped me two 256MB cards. It took them one week, but Viking also recovered 60 of the images that were missing for me. I estimate that I lost less than 10 images all together. However helpful Viking was, the card was defective, and the whole experience probably cost me 10 hours of time. Unfortunately, one of the 256 MB card has corrupted as well.

The Simple card on the other hand, just worked. No Card ERROR, no problem in uploading into the computer, the way it should be. It has been 3 months.

It's probably a little early in the CF card's lifespan to write this review, but I'll focus on potential uses rather than reliability.

I basically bought the card for my HP Jornada 567 Pocket PC 2002. It already had 64 megs of memory, but I wanted more. I also already had a 256 MB card for my Nikon Coolpix 775, so this one was more for the handheld than anything else.

My HP can playback MP3's directly off the CF card without modification, and with drag-and-drop functionality from my notebook's hard drive, which is nice. That way I can store around a hundred songs for music on the go, which I typically listen to in the car, using a cassette adapter through the HP's headphone jack.

I also enjoy watching movies on the go, and with the downloadable Windows Media Encoder, I can reformat almost any movie file into .WMA format, and bring it with me. The card could conceivably store three full-length feature films at 192 x 144 resolution without much problem.

It's also great for carrying large text documents with you wherever you go...like, say, your novel, technical manuals, the Bible, as well as a couple dozen songs, and still have room for a movie or two...amazing! I don't know how I got around without this baby.

Another plus is that you will *never* run out of space while taking photos on vacation with your digital camera, even at the highest settings, unless you do field work for National Geographic.

So far, this card has changed my definition for personal entertainment and functionality. Viking makes pretty good hardware, too. Just watch out for any rebates they offer (there was no offer on *this* card, but be careful).

Now I'm just waiting for the Gigabyte card...

After reading some of these reviews, I thought I would add my two cents. I had some of the same problems with error corruption. I lost a few pictures after several weeks of use. I thought that it was due to the CF card. I actually got a quick response from Viking and after trying what they suggested (and failing to resolve the problem), they issued an RMA number and I had a new card within the week. Today, while perusing through some reviews of my camera (Canon Powershot s400), I read a review that suggested that the camera corrupts images with CF cards above 256MB. I don't know if this is true, but I don't have any other CF device to test this theory. So far, I have started using my card again, but I haven't reached above 256MB (the problem apparently occurs above 256MB of storage).

I hope it was only the CF card that I had and that the problem will not be an issue for the camera. As for the customer service, it was great for me, but I can speak for the service for Canadian customers as with the previous post.

I used this on a Canon S1 IS and it performed flawlessly. Even the video mode at Super Fine 640 x 480 recording didn't skip a beat. I suspect most people don't format the Compact Flash to their camera, DO IT and you shouldn't have any difficulty. As fast a compact flash as I need.

Check what size cards your device supports before you buy a large CF card.

We have a camera, an MP3 player, and an eBook that support CF. Not all devices support the larger cards. A large card must be formatted with the FAT32 filesystem, which not all devices support.

Other devices have other limitations. Our camera, for instance, works well with a 256MB, freshly formatted card, until it takes a certain number of pictures, after which it cannot access the card and displays an error. There is nothing wrong with the card, and the pictures are still on it. The manufacture publishes only a list of tested cards. They will not say what the card size or picture count limts are.

Again, check what size cards your device supports before you buy one of the large CF cards.