What micro SD card shall I get?

[Wacky Racer]

OK,

Thought I would ask the PH photographic gurus for some advice as I know nothing about this kind of stuff.

Been bought a small inexpensive Vivitar camcorder as an Xmas pressie, and it recommends a micro SD memory card of 32Gb in the instructions...

My feeling is this is way over the top, 8Gb or maybe 16Gb should be more than enough...The longest I probably would be filming for is four or five minutes at a time, if that. The difference in price is quite substantial between the three sizes.

Any advice would be greatfully received.

Cheers.

[LongQ]

Memory cards are often available at a huge reduction from list price.

As important as the capacity does the camera suggest a card speed rating classification?

I would guess that Class 10 would be a recommendation - though that merely sets a lowish low end of write and read speeds.

Check out mymemory.co.uk and play.com (amongst others) for deals. Shop carefully for the best price/performance combination. £20 would probably get you Class 10 32Gb. 8Gb for about tenner from a very swift glance.

You might hint to gift giver that, as a gift, it seems a little incomplete ....

[Wacky Racer]

LongQ said:

Memory cards are often available at a huge reduction from list price.

As important as the capacity does the camera suggest a card speed rating classification?

I would guess that Class 10 would be a recommendation - though that merely sets a lowish low end of write and read speeds.

Check out mymemory.co.uk and play.com (amongst others) for deals. Shop carefully for the best price/performance combination. £20 would probably get you Class 10 32Gb. 8Gb for about tenner from a very swift glance.

You might hint to gift giver that, as a gift, it seems a little incomplete ....

Thanks, to be fair to my son....he did get me one, but it was a full size one, (not understanding these things).....(not a micro one)....

[LongQ]

Wacky Racer said:

Thanks, to be fair to my son....he did get me one, but it was a full size one, (not understanding these things).....(not a micro one)....

No excuse - youngsters are supposed to know this stuff before the leave the womb! (Unless you son is over 50 in which case none of that applies.)

Failing that, blame the retailer for poor advice ...

As for size - it really depends on the output rate form the camere Some can get through huge amounts of memory in no time at all - not because they are especially high resolution but because they don't use powerful streaming compression techniques.

But whatever you do if you want to get a deal rather than grab something NOW to be able to use the camera TODAY - go mail order and don't expect anything like consistent pricing even for similar products from the same vendor.

[Wacky Racer]

LongQ said:

Wacky Racer said:

Thanks, to be fair to my son....he did get me one, but it was a full size one, (not understanding these things).....(not a micro one)....

No excuse - youngsters are supposed to know this stuff before the leave the womb! (Unless you son is over 50 in which case none of that applies.)

Failing that, blame the retailer for poor advice ...

As for size - it really depends on the output rate form the camere Some can get through huge amounts of memory in no time at all - not because they are especially high resolution but because they don't use powerful streaming compression techniques.

But whatever you do if you want to get a deal rather than grab something NOW to be able to use the camera TODAY - go mail order and don't expect anything like consistent pricing even for similar products from the same vendor.

OK, thanks very much for the advice, very kind of you, I know it's a minefield out there, the list price of a 32Gb one is around £50, but they seem to be "available" for around £20 on the net.

I think it's a toss up between 16 and 32 tbh.

[XG332]

Get over to hotukdeals.
People post links to offers and micro sd cards are very often posted.

[LongQ]

Wacky Racer said:

LongQ said:

Wacky Racer said:

Thanks, to be fair to my son....he did get me one, but it was a full size one, (not understanding these things).....(not a micro one)....

No excuse - youngsters are supposed to know this stuff before the leave the womb! (Unless you son is over 50 in which case none of that applies.)

Failing that, blame the retailer for poor advice ...

As for size - it really depends on the output rate form the camere Some can get through huge amounts of memory in no time at all - not because they are especially high resolution but because they don't use powerful streaming compression techniques.

But whatever you do if you want to get a deal rather than grab something NOW to be able to use the camera TODAY - go mail order and don't expect anything like consistent pricing even for similar products from the same vendor.

OK, thanks very much for the advice, very kind of you, I know it's a minefield out there, the list price of a 32Gb one is around £50, but they seem to be "available" for around £20 on the net.

I think it's a toss up between 16 and 32 tbh.

I would tend to agree.

It's a bit more difficult, I think, the get preformance figures for microSD cards but all cards and the various 'class' levels are not usually the same for 'speeds' (In SDHC world) so I expect the same for microSD.

It's not just a matter of whether the card can readily keep up with whatever the camera throws at it. Just as important can be how long it takes to download the resulting output (which I assume you would do from time to time).

The MyMemory site tends to have the information about write and read speeds in the product info. IN general You are likely to see Sandisk and maybe Lexar offering class leading performance somewhere in the list. For example the claim is that the Sandisk Ultra Class 10 (for Android whatever that means) offer 30Mb/sec Read and Write at the 16Gb capacity point. An equivalent class 10 card from Transcend - a very reasonable brand - claims 14Mb/sec write and 20Mb/sec read. At today's offer prices it is slightly more expensive too.

If you are on the MyMemory site click through the "What other customer are buying" screen(s) and go for the full list of microSD cards. Subject to any odd things the camera may specify about what it needs the class 10 Sandisk Ultra cards look like good value. As I recall I paid about £1 per Gb back in March so the per Gb rate is substantially less today for a good quality product from a leading manufacturer.

[Wacky Racer]

Thanks all, ended up ordering a 32GB Sandisk Class 10 for £17......

I'm hardly David Bailey so it should do the job....