SanDisk Mobile Ultra microSDHC - 16GB review

Do you really need a fast memory card?

27 January 2009 16:00 GMT / By Stuart Miles

You've never got enough storage have you? Well SanDisk is hoping to change this for mobile phone users keen to take movies or music on the go, with a new 16GB microSDHC card. But is it enough? We get storing to find out.

Ok, we admit the premise of reading about a microSDHC card sounds dull, we thought that might be the case reviewing it, but bear with us for 3 minutes of your time, we will keep it brief.

So here's the rub, there are two types of mobile memory card users. Those who buy a big card, shove it in their phone and forget about, saving the odd photo, maybe the odd music track, but not much more.

Then there is the other bunch, those who consume content like TV shows, videos and music, constantly changing the content each week as they get through the stuff they've loaded.

This card, put simply is for the latter group. Why? Because the "Mobile Ultra" bit of the title means that it has fast transfer speed capabilities.

Coming in at 16GB there is plenty of space for your movies, music, images and TV shows, heck we even used it to install Windows 7 on our PC. In our pseudo benchmark - don't panic you are not going to get a series of graphs here - we transferred 2.35GB (the size of a 90 minute movie) to the card using the accompanying MobileMate Micro Reader that SanDisk bundles in the box. The transfer took just under 4 minutes.

Not bad. So how long for a non "Mobile Ultra" card by the same company? A lengthy 14 minutes to transfer the same file. You can see why those who like to transfer would get excited. This is going to save you time, and lots of it.

To achieve those speeds all you need to have is a USB 2.0-compatible port to plug the MobileMate Micro Reader into and that's it.

Verdict

It might sound boring, but if you're into watching content on the go and don't want to be wasting time in the morning transferring it to your phone, then this is clearly a fantastic way to do it. Yes, I know, I never thought I would be using the word fantastic and microSD in the same sentence, but there you go - it seems there is a first time for everything.

Short, sweet, but incredibly useful.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: SanDisk
Price as reviewed: £80
The good: Small, lots of storage space, fast transfer speeds, get USB reader in the box
The bad: So small you'll probably lose it
Quick verdict: We were surprised. If you are regularly changing the content on your phone this is the one to get
Score