Great prices on Nokia N8 Accessories

While full-size SDHC cards enjoy both large capacity of up to 32GB (even larger with SDXC) and high speed Class 10 performance, mobile oriented microSDHC cards aren’t quite there yet. On the mobile front, the industry has yet to produce a card that’s 32GB (or larger) with high-speed Class 10 or Class 6 cards. Until than we’re left with the choice of choosing either speed (Class 6 or higher) or high capacity. Today’s review does just that: We’ll compare the highest capacity card available ( the Sandisk 32GB Class 2) against the fastest high capacity card available on the market (the Lexar 16GB Class 6). Based on your needs, do you need speed or capacity?

A matter of speed

The SD association defines four levels of Speed Class: 2, 4, 6 and with 10 added just recently. Interestingly these Class levels reveal a card’s minimum sustained transfer and not the usual maximum speed: Speed Class 2 guarantees a minimum transfer speed of 2 mega bytes per second (MB/s), Speed Class 4, 6 and 10 guarantee a minimum transfer speed of 4 , 6  and 10MB/s  respectively. Some manufacturer of full-size cards are now even claiming to have a minimum transfer speeds of 16 MB/s or Class 16. When it comes to microSD card, it’s safe to say that they are a bit slower. Do keep in mind that the maximum read/write speed can be much higher but not necessarily maintained continuously. In other words a card can reach 30MB/s, but can maintain that speed for only 5 seconds for example.

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Well, technically it’s about 56.93GB of total storage, since the way electronic devices process these Gigabytes is different. So in reality that 32GB SanDisk microSDHC card is actually more like 29.8GB. Same thing can be said for the N900’s built-in 32GB, minus a few system files of course.

Thanks to our friends at MobileFun, we’ve gotten our hands on the new Sandisk 32GB microSDHC, the SDSDQ-032G-A11M to be exact. Putting this into N900 adds A LOT to the already impressive storage amount available on the N900. So yes, that’s 57 GB(!) of storage, on a mobile device! Stay tuned for our full review.

The N900’s memory card is not hidden beneath the battery, which means that in theory you could pull out the memory card with the phone turned on, possibly damaging the device, the memory card and corrupting data. For this reason Nokia has included a neat feature which disconnects the memory card if the back cover is not in place. If for some reason you don’t have the back cover on and in File Manager your are not seeing the memory card, it’s a possibility that you have a corrupted memory card. It could also be that because the back cover is not there, it’s triggering the mechanism to disable the memory card. Try putting the back cover on and make sure it’s securely in place.

32GB microSDHC card have been announced almost a year ago, but are just now starting to become available. Instead of leaving the memory card business to third parties, Nokia usually follows with their own branded versions of the highest storage capacity  available on memory cards available. This time Nokia has released a monstrosity in the form of the MU-45, their version of a 32GB microSDHC card. This also means that 64GB of storage is now easily available to the masses as flagship devices such as the N900 already have 32GB of built-in storage.

Nokia branded memory cards are usually not the fastest, but very reliable. We still don’t have no word on pricing, but expect something in the range of $130 to just south of the $200 mark. It’s also safe to say that the latest if you bought your Nokia in the last 2 years it should be able to supprt the SDHC standard. Nokia’s own compatibility list can be found here.

With the 4GB microSDHC now confirmed to work on the N95 I’ve been looking to buy one of these online. Some of the very first available could be bought on eBay but apparently these didn’t come with the bonus MicroMate USB 2.0 SD/SDHC Reader mention on the Sandisk 4GB microSDHC product page. While these don’t cost a lot it’s always nice to find them in the package. While browing through the Blueunplugged site I noticed that they had the 4GB microSDHC with the bonus MicroMate reader for £ 31.45 which is about $63. So I guess I will buy it there, but do they ship international?