Kingston 120x 2 gig SD Card

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Review posted Feb. 28, 2006 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

Kingston, a well known computer and flash memory manufacturer, offers SD card in three series: SD, Elite Pro SD and their fastest, the SD Ultimate. We reviewed their Elite Pro SD and CF cards in Feb. 2004, and their SD Ultimate which came out in the summer of 2005, is the subject of today's review. The SD Ultimate line is available in 512 meg, 1 gig and 2 gig capacities.

Kingston SD Ultimate card

Speed ratings such as 60x or 120x are less meaningful than they seem because there's no standardization for that rating system. 120x could refer to read speed, write speed or a combination of both. Kingston is very clear on their "x" ratings and they provide detailed info on their web site. They state that "x" refers to write speed, where x= 150 KB/sec, so their 120x card has an 18 MB/sec. transfer speed. Read speeds are generally much higher than write speeds, so it's no feat these days to have a card with very high read speeds, but not all have fast write speeds. How does this matter to you? If you're using the card in a digital camera, especially one that's 5MP or above, faster write speeds mean the camera is ready for the next shot faster. New professional and prosumer digital SLRs usually have faster card slots whose data bus can handle higher transfer speeds and thus they can take advantage of cards like the SD Ultimate. For use in a PDA or smartphone, you generally won't need a card with very fast write speeds: the cameras in these mobile devices create very small files which won't take much time to save even using a 60x card. Read speeds are important and the Kingston does well in read tests. Where it really shines is in write speed: the numbers are excellent in our benchmarks, particularly in File Write.

Lexar 256 meg SD Card

File Create: 308%
File Delete: 310%
File Write: 57%
File Read: 521%
File Seek: 3933%
DB Export: 178%
DB Import: 275%
Record Access: 1292%
Resource Access: 1280%

VFSMark: 906

ATP 6Pro Max 150X 2 Gig SD Card Pro

File Create: 2257%
File Delete: 2266%
File Write: 57%
File Read: 545%
File Seek: 3933%
DB Export: 230%
DB Import: 308%
Record Access: 1206%
Resource Access: 1280%

VFSMark: 1342

Kingston 2 gig 120x SD Card

File Create: 175%
File Delete: 931%
File Write: 235%
File Read: 545%
File Seek: 3933%
DB Export: 378%
DB Import: 315%
Record Access: 1248%
Resource Access: 1280%

VFSMark: 1004

Warranty: Kingston SD cards come with a lifetime warranty.

Web site: www.kingston.com

Price: varies by capacity

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