Digital Camera Canon Powershot Review

In the past, I bought a Transcend 8GB SDHC card for my Canon SD1000 camera. I recently bought the Transcend 16GB SDHC for my new Canon SX20IS. Both cards work very well and I've had no problems with it so far. I wanted to take this opportunity to update my review since my original review was also posted (by Amazon) for the 16GB card. This is because the only difference between these two cards is the different capacity. So, if you're in the market for an affordable high quality SDHC card, this may be the one for you. Sorry, I kind of sounded like a used car salesman right there, didn't I? I assure you that I don't work for Transcend. But, here's why I think this card is awesome:

Pros:

-Affordable!

-Large capacity

-Class 6 read/write speed (which is very fast... but is no longer the fastest class available)

-Lifetime warranty (at least that's what the package says :)

-Transcend is a reputable company that's been making memory products for a very long time. ( I swear to the tech Gods that I don't work for them!) Other reputable and reliable memory card companies include Kingston and PNY. All three of these companies have been making memory chips for many, many years.


Cons:

- I can' really think of any "Cons" about this card. But here's the 2 closest things I can come up with right now: (1) "Class 6" is no longer the fastest speed available and (2) This card does NOT make coffee for you in the morning, do your dishes for you, give you compliments when you're having a bad day, or magically improve your photography skills.




IMPORTANT SPECIAL NOTES ABOUT SDHC MEMORY CARDS:

-SDHC cards are not compatible with most older SD cameras, SD devices, or SD card readers.

-SDHC cards are rated by speed using different "classes". There are currently 4 data transfer speed classes available for SDHC cards. These classes are "class 2, class 4, and class 6, and the new class 10. For example, "Class 2" would have the slowest read/write speed while "Class 6" has the fastest read/write speed. So if you have a device in which speed may play a crucial role, make sure you buy a higher "class" SDHC card. Please note that this SDHC card no longer has the fastest read/write speed available. There is now a new class, called "Class 10". Class 6 has a minimum read/write speed of 6mb/sec... while Class 2 has minimum speed rating of 2mb/sec, and Class 4 is 4mb/sec. Starting to see the pattern?


SO WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "SD CARDS" AND "SDHC CARDS?

SDHC is basically an upgrade to the older SD cards. The reason they upgraded it was to achieve greater data transfer speeds AND capacity than previously possible with normal SD cards... and to do this, they had to redesign the card (which is why it's not compatible with normal SD devices). This was necessary because digital cameras and digital video cameras these days have higher resolutions, which equate to larger file sizes and faster data transfer needs.

Now that many digital cameras also can record HD video, you may consider getting a larger capacity card because video takes much more space than photos. The size of the video varies from camera to camera depending on what resolution and video compression the camera uses. If you plan on taking lots of video (especially HD video), I would consider getting at least a 16GB card. Check your camera specifications to see how many minutes per Gig of memory your camera can capture ...to gauge how big of a memory card you'll want to get to meet your needs.

Special Note on regular SD Cards:
If you primarily take casual photos and don't need a exceptionally fast read/write capable card, you should know that newer cameras that take "SDHC" cards will also work with older normal "SD" cards. These older cards are cheaper than the new SDHC cards, so this may be something to consider. So to sum things up, newer cameras will take SDHC and regular SD cards, but older cameras that use SD cards may not be able to use SDHC cards. This is because newer technology is usually made to be compatible with older technology (the technical term used to describe this is "backwards compatibility") ... but older technology may not have the hardware necessary to run newer tech (technical term used is "obsolete"... just kidding! ;)

I hope I haven't confused everybody by going into this much detail, but I can't help being the nerd that I am. If you are confused, don't hesitate to comment on this post and I will try my best to answer your questions. Also, any feedback is always welcome!

Conclusion: Buy the card if you have a new device that uses SDHC. It rocks! (This message has been approved by the "Duke of New Mexico")

UPDATE - March 2, 2010: This review was originally written for the 4 GB class 6 SDHC card, but the reviews have been grouped for all class 6 SDHC cards in the 4, 8, 16 and 32 GB sizes. All the cards should perform similarly since they are all class 6 and all made by Transcend. However, I will have to check which cards I have used hands on. I believe I only own the 4GB and 8GB cards. I will update the review further. If you have concerns regarding the 16GB or 32GB sizes, you should seek out the reviews tagged with the product links from those cards.


The Transcend 4GB SDHC CARD (Class 6) is a great card for the price. I was at first a little skeptical about the brand, but I buy way too many memory cards to ignore a good price when I see one. And I'm happy to report that I've experienced decent performance and reliability issues with this card. That's as compared to other cards I own including SanDisk, PNY and Kingston.

As long as your devices are compatible with the SDHC format, this card is a good buy. 4 GB is a nice size though I do prefer 8 GB capacity for high capacity storage.

The class 6 speed is the fastest speed available in mass market SDHC cards. Class 6 guarantees minimum transfer speeds of 6 MBs, but I've gotten speeds up to 20Mbs! That makes this card perfect for storing pictures in RAW image formats.

The Class 6 speed is on par with the Sandisk Extreme III cards that on average are about $15 to $20 more per card. If you don't have an SDHC reader, you may opt to get the package with a reader included to download your pics. If not you can just transfer your pics directly from your camera with your card still inserted. An SDHC card reader can be bought separately if your PC doesn't have a compatible slot.

General SDHC and SD Card Tips

There are a few tips that I've learned the hard way through buying TOO MANY different memory cards.
1. Make sure your device is compatible with the card! Even in regular SD cards, some older electronics aren't compatible with that large of a size (2 GB). In terms of SDHC cards, make sure your camera or other device is SDHC compatible. SDHC is different from regular SD and only newer devices tend to have built-in compatibility
2. Once you install this in your camera or device, you will generally want to format the card with your compatible device's interface. That is because the standard formats for certain devices, particularly Canon, are different from the factory installed format
3. Just like your devices, most computer SD card readers are not compatible with the SDHC format. So use a card reader or download the pictures via USB connection to the camera with the card still installed.
4. For some reason, placing the card in the locked position allows some older laptops to still read it. This is just to be used in a pinch however, and it won't apply to all systems
5. If you did not properly format your card, you may be able to save things to it and then have them "disappear." If this happens to you, make sure you use the software recovery tools BEFORE you try to save anything else to your card. That way, you can retrieve your images without over-writing them.
6. Make sure you know what you are going to use this card for. Once you have set up everything and ensured it's all compatible, you still have to decide on speed. If you are using this for storing RAW images instead of JPEGs or HD video, step up to the faster class 6 speed format if you can afford it.
7. If you are going to pay more for a faster speed, make sure your device can benefit from it. I've read, for example, that Kodak cameras are set to a fixed voltage and cannot go faster than standard speed. So the extra cash spent on Class 4, 5, or 6 is basically wasted.

Conclusion

It's great to have several extra cards on hand just in case. This 4 GB card is a nice performer. If you have a high capacity camera (10 Megapixels or more) and are storing videos or RAW images, the extra cash for the 8GB card is worth it. Or you may want to step up to the larger 16 GB size that is now available.

Enjoy!

Before you drop 120~$ for a SD card ask yourself, Do you really need 32GB card? because the card itself with same specs costs only 35$ for the 16GB version, anyway here is info that might help you

Pros :
1- Class 6 Card the(guaranteed minimum Read/write speed of 6MB/s)
2- My Test Results 18.2-18.5MB/S Read - 11.6-11.8 Write (very stable)
3- Faster than average cards and almost close to top speed SDHC cards
4- 32GB in a single small chip is awesome(You can use it as a portable HD once in a while, i share some stuff with my friends with it sometimes


Cons :
1- Expensive
2- You can get two 16GB cards for around only 70$ and save yourself 50$~
3- Slow write speeds for a 32GB card (Takes forever to fill it with DATA from PC, its not the card fault though , its just the SDHC technology is getting old and slow for 2009 standards , time for newer Tech)

* Important Info

Avoid the Sandisk Ultra Series they never reach the true marketed speed "15MB-20MB/S" its just in theory speed like how everybody knows that USB2 is much slower than its specs, and they are only Class 2 for the 32GB version which will drop frames from your HD video (Plus Class 4 is minimum requirement for shooting in HD ) if you plan to get San disk Card then get the Extreme III Series (but again from my own Tests there read speed is about 20MB not 30MB and the write speed is 14MB/s~ instead of the transcend 11MB/s write speed (Unless you spam shooting pictures with your DSLR you don't "need" faster speed)

I bought This card because i plan to take videos with my HD camcorder that last more 2 Hours, if you do not plan to shoot for longtime then you are better with getting the 16GB card HOWEVER, if you are lazy like my mom and do not plan to transfer DATA from the card to Your computer HD after every trip, then get the 32GB card.or you gonna end up on a trip and a message pops "No memory"

If you plan to shoot for longer time, check your camcorder battery too does it even last that long? so be sure about that before you drop over 100$ for this card

I recently purchased a Canon Powershot A720IS digital camera that is capable of recognizing and using up to 2 TERRABYTES of memory card (in the future) so I wanted to get the largest memory card I could install for now. I wanted to use the camera both on dry land and with an underwater housing for shooting stills and video on dive trips. Camera specs said an 8 GB SDHC card would record one hour of hi res video at 30 fps. Or nearly 2300 hi res stills at 8 megapixels.

A test of the Transcend 8GB SDHC card in the camera ended up shooting 70 minutes of full screen, 30fps digital video that could not be distinguished from my DV camcorder video quality. Playback from the memory card to the TV was so fast & efficient there was never a single "stutter" on the screen. The card speed is genuinely FAST as advertised. Low level formatting of the card allowed for very acceptable rapid-fire sequential still photo shooting speeds when light levels were bright enough that the flash was not needed/used. Something like 2 photos every 3 seconds. Files were flawless in display, both for stills and video.

This product was significantly lower in price than the Kingston 8GB SDHC card I originally bought with the camera. I've used both interchangeably and cannot see any different in the speed or capacity and quality of imagery is identical. For the money I'll stick with Transcend and am looking forward to getting their 16GB card once the price drops substantially below the $100 mark. That would provide nearly 2 1/2 hours of video on my still camera or 4600 highest quality stills. I'm afraid my camcorder will be collecting dust much of the time. A big advantage to video on the card is there are NO MOVING PARTS, e.g. a mini DV tape cassette and camcorder or VCR playback unit needed to dump the video and stills to my Mac for editing and burning DVDs. I just stick the card in the MicroMate USB card reader, plug it in the computer and bingo, ready to sort thru and dump to the hard drive. Since the card is formatted by a Canon camera it automatically boots up the Canon Viewer software too. That should work the same for other brands of still cameras formatting this chip.

Well, it was great while it lasted. Unfortunately, it did not last long.

Like other reviewers, after <20 use cycles the device failed and I got a "lock" error when, in fact, the write-protection lock was not engaged. Oddly, by engaging the lock (i.e. entering read-only mode) I was able to remove the picture files from the card. Obviously, further use in the camera was impossible; I was also unable to reformat the card (either with my camera or with the SD Associations free software [..]).

This card has a high average rating but I would urge customers to consider the number of 1-star ratings due to complete product failure before they purchase this item.

This SDHC card is the fastest one in its price range but it may cause your images to be lost.

I use two of this in a Canon SD750. After the first use, all of the images were lost. (But thank God, I could rescue them with Lexar Image Rescue 2, a program better than its competitors) Then I formated the card(s) in the camera(s) with "low level format" option several times and there has been no problem after that so far.

I can suggest these points to potential owners of this card:
1- Use it very carefully, make backups if possible.
2- Format it several times before the first use with "low level format" option.
3- If you loose your images, don't panic. At this situation, It is very important not to take anymore pictures. If you take pictures after this point, you can overwrite your lost images and there can be no chance to get them back. Connect your card to your computer with a card reader (SDHC Compatible) and rescue them with Lexar Image Rescue.

This card is able to hold a complete DVD movie, thousands of songs/photos, or just serve as a backup device for one's files.

It operates very well - I now have purchased 3 and with each use its value becomes more apparent.

One word of caution - even though most laptops and systems have an SD card slot, older computers may not be able to recognize or write to this card. Make sure your system has the ability to read SDHC configured products.

If you do not have an SD slot you can purchase an tiny SD reader (very inexpensive) that plugs into your USB port.

I recently ordered this card as an accessory for my Acer Aspire One netbook PC. The card took a little while to ship, about 8 days, but that wasn't a big deal. The card has lots of space, and the read speeds are quite impressive. I mostly use it to run and store portable software, and it does a very good job at that.

My only complaint is that when I first inserted the card into my PC it attempted to install some adware. The program was from a company called RelevantKnowledge, and they gather your information for market research purposes. Luckily my spyware software picked it up immediately,so I was able to delete it. Afterward I formatted the card, and now I'm happy as can be.

This card was to be used in my Canon Vixia HF100 camcorder and Canon SD800 still camera. After its 1st use it has developed a corrupt file system. I'm not able to format it, as the file system is only recognized as RAW at this point. Sometimes the Windows command prompt function "CHKDSK /R" will fix problems with a bad index or file corruptions (accessed via Start --> Run --> cmd), but I can't even get that far.

My A-DATA 16GB SDHC C-6 has worked beautifully for >1 month and is less costly (per GB, of course!) & faster than this model (using the Vixia HF100 and SD800 camera).

Given others' ratings, I must acknowledge that my experience is likely the result of some fairly rare production anomaly...I suppose even more reason to document it...

I'm pursuing support options now & will report from that vantage point next. I will update this review and/or associated * rating with any change(s), as warranted.

Transcend 16 GB SDHC SD Class 6 Flash Memory Card TS16GSDHC6E [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]
I have 4 of these cards that I use in my Panasonic HMC-150, a professional grade video camera. I've run read/write tests on all of them and they get about 14 MB/s write speeds and 17.5 MB/s read speeds. Never encountered any errors! These cards are the best bang for your buck, and the frustration free packaging is awesome.