Test drive of SanDisk's 16GB Mobile Ultra microSD memory card

SanDisk 16GB Mobile Ultra microSDHC kit

Card, reader, and lanyard

Card shown with a U.S. dime

Back at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, SanDisk announced new 16GB "Mobile Ultra" memory cards in the microSDHC^(INFO) and Sony M2^(INFO) formats. For those not familiar with SanDisk's Ultra products, they are designed to support higher speed data transfers than the regular cards and are often used in digital cameras and camcorders for that reason.

SanDisk sent us one of its 16GB microSD kits for testing. While we didn't have a non-Ultra 16GB microSD card to compare against, we did have a couple of non-Ultra 8GB cards handy. For those familiar with the class ratings of SD type cards, the new 16GB Mobile Ultra cards are class 4, while the older 8GB non-Ultra cards we tested are class 2. Class 4 cards are supposed to be capable of write speeds of 4 MB/s, while class 2 devices are only required to write at 2 MB/s.

In our strictly unscientific tests, which used the included SanDisk USB 2.0 microSD card reader, we found that both the class 2 8GB card and the new class 4 Mobile Ultra 16GB card far surpassed their rated write speeds. The older 8GB card managed to write data from our PC at about 12.3 MB/s, or roughly 1 minute and 21 seconds for 1GB of data. The new 16GB Ultra card shaved about 14% off of that time, moving data at 14.4 MB/s, or roughly 1 minute 10 seconds for 1GB of data. Read rates were even faster, though not hugely so.

Ultra or not, we're talking about some pretty impressive data transfer speeds.

Of course the speed you get reading from or writing to a card has an awful lot to do with the device it is being used in, that device's operating system, and the application that is accessing the data - so your mileage may vary. But suffice to say, the new Mobile Ultra cards seem more than up to the task.

Speed is great, and all, but what does 16GB really net you today? Quite a bit, actually. By SanDisk's own estimates, 16GB of storage space is good for 4,000 songs at 128Kbps or 54,000 2 megapixel photos. It also means over 4.5 hours of HD video with our company Canon video camera. That's a lot of storage space. SanDisk also guarantees the cards for 10 years, and the USB reader for 2.

The list price for the 16GB microSDHC Mobile Ultra card kit is US$119.99, which includes the USB 2.0 reader. The M2 version needed for most Sony and Sony Ericsson products costs an additional $20. We're not sure if the price premium for the Mobile Ultra cards is worth it when compared with the non-Ultra cards, but we're pretty sure folks will be satisfied with the performance either way.

The 16GB Mobile Ultra M2 card is already shipping, while the microSD version is slated to start shipping later this month.