Kingston 8 GB microSD/SDHC Card Review

Kingston Technology recently added an 8 GB microSD/SDHC card to its product line. I put this new accessory through its paces and I have no real complaints.

Storage Capacity

Kingston promises this card can store more than 1,500 digital songs, more than 4,000 images from a 5 MPx cameraphone, or up to 8 hours of video.

I have to say, the company was very conservative in the video category. I loaded my demo unit up with over 20 hours of TV shows formatted to play on a smartphone's screen and only used about half its capacity. I guess Kingston was talking about video formatted for a PC's screen.

Compatibility

This card supports the SDHC format, but that's no surprise; there are no 8 GB microSD cards that don't use SDHC. Still, it's something people should aware of, as there are a few devices around with microSD card slots that don't support the SDHC format. These max out at 2 GB of storage, and can't use Kingston's 8 GB card.

Sometimes, if you buy a memory card from a second-tier supplier you'll get an unpleasant surprise: your device can't read it. Kingston is a top-tier memory card maker, so I didn't expect any compatibility problems.

Still, part of my job as a reviewer is to help people answer questions like "Will this card work with my phone/PDA/whatever?" So I tested this Kingston card with every mobile device with every SDHC -compliant card slot I could get my hands on. It worked just fine on all of them.

I successfully used it with:

• AT&T Tilt
• HTC Touch
• HTC Touch Diamond
• HTC Advantage X7510
• Nokia N810
• Samsung Instinct
• Verizon XV6800

I also used it with my PC thanks to the full-size SD card adapter that Kingston bundles with this card. I needed my own SDHC card reader too, of course, but these are available in most electronics stores if you don't have one already. I you buy one, make sure it has SDHC card support. 

I found using a card reader to generally be the fastest way to transfer data onto this accessory.

The closest thing to a complaint I can come up with -- and I'll admit this is a stretch -- is that Kingston only bundles an SD-size adapter with this card and not a miniSD-size one too. I know miniSD is rapidly becoming the  red-headed stepchild of the memory card world, but there are some devices that use it. For example, if you want to use this card with the Nokia N810 or HTC Advantage like I did you're going to need to scrounge up the correct adapter for it.

Availability

Kingston's 8 GB  microSD/SDHC card has a suggested price of $58. I did a bit of hunting around online though, and found a number of places offering it for between $40 and $50.

More information on this product can be found at kingston.com/flash.