Getting confused by the memory cards?
Memory card technology seems to have started to move again quite abruptly leading to a few extra labels on the packaging of SD cards.
At the moment there are three basic types of SD memory cards around and whether or not they are fine for your device is a little hit and miss. First there are the cards up to 1GB which will work in all devices that take SD cards of whatever age. Next you’ve the 2GB cards which work in most relatively new devices (up to around 3 years old); if your device is 3+ years old you’ll not know if these work until you try one. Finally there are the SDHC cards which start from 4GB and should only work in devices labelled SDHC but actually work in at least some fairly modern devices when you try them (if it’s not labelled SDHC, you won’t know if it will work until you try it). A device marked SDHC will be able to use all of the current generation of SD cards.
What size should you get? If you’ve a compact camera there’s not much point in getting anything really large as you’ll never even come close to filling it eg on my 8mp compact at the very highest resolution setting a 2GB card holds nearly 500 photos and at the normal 8mp setting it’s nearly 1000 (or about 30 minutes of video). If you think about it, that’s the equivalent of getting on for 30 films and who would have taken that many photos on a holiday? On an SD camcorder, you’ll get around an hour of video on a 2GB card. Bear in mind though that if you are running out of space, you can always buy another card.
Price-wise, the best value generally seems to be 2GB at the moment with the 8GB cards being particularly expensive.
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