What you see left of this text is the actual size of a 128GB(!) microSDXC card on a
26″ screen which arrived today. with a size if 12x8x1mm this is the smallest
biggest memory card that can actually be used to expand a mobile phone’s
storage. Read the full review by triggering the “Continue Reading” button.

So that’s why I am testing this little fracker today in a short test. Be dazzled what such a small card still is capable of doing data handling.

For a MSRP of 149 US$ (got it in Switzerland for 129 CHF / seen it in Germany for 102.90 €) you get 128GB of total storage which comes to 1.16 US$ / 1.01 CHF / 0.80 € per GB. Nice bargain in my opinion!

Let’s start unpacking and do some product shootings:

Not a spectacular blister package but it holds the necessary info…

…inside is the SD adapter card and, of course, the microSDXC…

…which is so freakin’ tiny that you better care not loosing it!

The card itself comes preformatted with exFAT filesystem and no data on it (unlike SanDisk’s USB sticks that contain SmartRecovery Pro software on them for file recovery upon data loss…). So just pop it into a cardreader of your computer or into your cell phone. (Check before buying, if your smartphone can handle such big memory cards though!)

For the Lumia 1520 Nokia states that the biggest card is 64GB but I’ll proove them that they did a good job as the Lumia 1520 also swallows this little big fella! Testing and reading reviews online about card behavior in your device may help you decide whether to buy this card or not. Usually you should be good using this card immediately or when your smartphone has finished initializing it. If your phone doesn’t recognize the card instantly, try formatting it with the phone’s tools to have it made ready for it. If that doesn’t work either, then you’re most likely out of luck and your phone is indeed unable to handle big-sized cards. In fact it is mostly the issue that memory cards >32GB come preformatted with exFAT which isn’t recognized by the device. Other devices may not be able to handle disk writes beyond the magic 32768 MB border no matter if your card is formatted plain FAT32 (yes, there are tools to format larger drives with FAT32! Try googling “Smartdisk FAT32 tool”).

So I did some speed tests using SanDisk ImageMate USB3.0 cardreader attached to USB3.0 (of course!) to see if the card can cope with high speeds.

As you can see, the card delivers good speeds. The reading speed is above 30 MB/s, the sequential write speed of large files goes up to 20 MB/s which attests the card to comply with the UHS Class 10 specs!

If it comes to smaller files, the writing speed however is plummeting and delivering less than 1 MB/s. At 4K chunks, the reading speed is also less than 3 MB/s.

What sounds disturbing, is common for small memory cards. So no worries here. Your mobile buddy would be able to deliver the recommended speeds without problems. Even H.264-compressed FullHD video at 40 Mbit/s can be written without buffering or caching as the card is able to keep up the pace. However installing Apps with LOTS of small files may impact the speed of this little fracker. But the usual use case would not let you run into speed problems or issues at worst.

So I popped in the card into my Lumia to see if Nokia is right about writing (maximum manageable card size is 64GB) and guess what: My phone swallowed it without any mocking up and you can clearly see that the phone recognizes 119.05GB of storage to put all your videos, music and photos on. Way to go, Nokia! Your last big phablet was and still IS impressive!

Final verdict:

This card offers great value for the buck. No doubt. Although speed readings are good at large files, but drop at small files, I must say that I’ve seen better (also from SanDisk) but hey, the card meets the UHC Class10 speed category with ease, so no problems here. Since this card did not make any trouble with my cell phone or my computer, I can say that the compatibility should be great. SanDisk always took a lot of effort to make their products fit with a lot of devices upon release. So it’s okay, that the card has been released one year after announcement. And whereas Lexar, Panasonic & Co. have announced their cards at the same time, Sandisk did, SanDisk was again the first who actually brought their card on the public market. With this card you’ll also receive a SD card adapter (for old-fashioned cardreaders not able to directly swallow microSDXC cards) but that’s all, so there’s a small desuction of stars. Nevertheless, this small engineering artwork made me give the “Recommended”-Award

2014 – Recommended

(Category: Mobile gadgets)