micro SDHC brand for Sansa Fuze?

[GaryPham]

Hi guys, I was looking to pick up a micro SDHC card soon for my sansa fuze and was wondering if there was a difference in the quality of different brands. I read that some people say class 2 cards may be a bit too slow when viewing videos so I want something that'd be fast enough to run without problems.

The main brands that I'm currently looking at is Transcend, PQI, and A-Data. Has anyone here used these cards with their fuze? Also I was wondering if the class-6 rated cards of these brands are as fast as advertised since I read somewhere before that a Kingston class 4 was faster than the class-6 of these other brands.

Please let me know if you guys have any good recommendations. I'm looking to get an 8GB card.
Thanks

 

[ericj]

It's a little known fact that the Fuze can detect the presence of a non-sandisk sdhc card, and then cuts the battery life in half.

 

[ClieOS]

I am using an unbranded 8GB SDHC from DealExtreme rated as Class 4, but I did a read/write test on it and the speed is as fast as Class 6 - cheap and effective

 

[GaryPham]

So, is it safe to assume that there's really no differences in term of quality among the different brands?

 

[sonitus mirus]

More than likely it won't make any difference which brand you pick. The only thing to keep in mind might be what type of encoding you are using. Higher bitrates or FLAC files would, logically, require more data to be transferred. A lower quality, slow card might have trouble playing back a FLAC file, but work perfectly with a 192kb/s mp3 file.

 

[S J]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonitus mirus /img/forum/go_quote.gif More than likely it won't make any difference which brand you pick. The only thing to keep in mind might be what type of encoding you are using. Higher bitrates or FLAC files would, logically, require more data to be transferred. A lower quality, slow card might have trouble playing back a FLAC file, but work perfectly with a 192kb/s mp3 file.

Will data transfer rates really make a difference for audio only? Class 2 cards (the slowest class) have a write speed of 2Mb/s (presumably faster read speed?), so even lossless audio, which has a bit rate of well under 1Mb/s should play with no problems right? I'm also considering the same setup as the OP, but maybe with a 16gb card if I can find a cheap one

@ OP: brand shouldn't matter too much, as long as the form factor of the card is microSD/microSDHC. Video may be a problem on class 2 though, I'm not sure what formats the Fuze accepts. I would imagine that a properly reformatted/resized video problem would have no problems, since the screen resolution is so low. Maybe class 4/6 to be safe though, especially if the Fuze accepts videos at higher resolution than the screen...

 

[smrtby123]

it doesn't really matter for read speeds, where you spend you money is on the write speeds. If you don't mind transfers taking longer, than a cheap card is your best bet. The CF in my mini takes forever to write to but is fast when playing, etc.

 

[S J]

Okay cool, just wanted to make sure

 

[ericj]

The speed rating on flash devices is all about writing.

When you read flash, it's basically like reading ram. It's generally as fast as the interface allows.

Writing is a whole other game. Especially if sectors have to be erased.

Think of flash as being like a grid of soap bubbles. It's really hard to inflate just one bubble on the grid, but it's really easy to pop just one, or to inflate the whole grid.

erase-and-write on flash means inflating the whole grid and then popping individual bubbles.

 

[Robisan]

Known issue to be aware of -- the Fuze doesn't read/play video files properly off of Kingston cards; no problems with all supported audio codecs. These reports were prior to release of 16gb cards, so can't say if the Kingston 16gb also has this problem. Haven't seen any issues/problems noted on any other brand cards. If you're looking at an off/generic brand it might be worth a search over at the Fuze support forum to see if there are any reported problems.

 

[GaryPham]

so would it be a safe bet for me to just buy a generic micro SDHC class 6 card from ebay rather than dish out the extra bucks for a name brand card?

 

[RobertRussell]

I have an hp micros sdcard w/ adapter I put the micro into my sansa 8gb . How do I tell if it's there ? Do I have to format the card, If so, how?
 
Thanks,
Robert
goshpitchala2@hotmail.com

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

I have an hp micros sdcard w/ adapter I put the micro into my sansa 8gb . How do I tell if it's there ? Do I have to format the card, If so, how?
 
Thanks,
Robert
goshpitchala2@hotmail.com

 
Connect you Fuze to your PC and both should show up - if you can't find the TF card, take it out and format it first, then reinsert it back to Fuze and check with PC again.

 

[JK1]

The Sandisk players can use brands of cards other than Sandisk, however there are some compatability issues with some cards faster than class 4. Since the built in reader of the Fuze is not even class 4 and the readers in the Clip+ and Clip Zip are class 4, there is no advantage to getting a card faster than class 4. There are quality differences in different brands of cards which relate mostly to reliability and longevity. There are other high quality brands other than Sandisk. I use mostly Kingston cards, but also some Sandisk cards. The Kingston cards have worked great for me and almost all are highly rated, however I read some bad reviews on Amazon of the Kinston 32GB class 4 cards so I would avoid those. Transcend cards get good ratings. So do Lexar(Micron) cards. I suggest only buying retail packaged cards.