Sandisk Mobile Ultra Cards and MobileMate USB Reader

If you have a mobile phone that has a MicroSD or Memory Stick Micro (M2) slot, you might want to check out Sandisk’s new Mobile Ultra cards. They are available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities. They claim higher performance transfer rates than previous cards and also ship with a tiny USB MobileMate card reader. They sent me a 4GB MicroSDHC card to try out…

Dang these cards are tiny. I always feel like I’m all thumbs when I need to insert or remove one from my Centro smartphone.

Let’s see how file transfer speeds compare between a Sandisk Ultra II microSD card and the new Mobile Ultra microSDHC card. The tests were done using a Dell laptop running Windows XP and the test files were .zips of text and executable files.

4GB Sandisk Mobile Ultra MicroSDHC card:
27mb file copied from PC to Card – 5 seconds
27mb file copied from card to PC – 1 seconds
121mb file copied from PC to Card – 16 seconds
121mb file copied from card to PC – 15 seconds

1GB Sandisk UltraII MicroSD card:
27mb file copied from PC to Card – 7 seconds
27mb file copied from card to PC – 2 seconds
121mb file copied from PC to Card – 23 seconds
121mb file copied from card to PC – 20 seconds

As you can see, copying files is faster with the new card, but not crazy faster. By themselves, these cards are great, but I have to tell you that what I like most is the little USB card reader that is included with them. It can be used for either microSD cards or the Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards. For me, it’s more convenient to have this little MobileMate reader in my gear bag, instead of an SD card adapter and a regular card reader or even a card reader than has a dedicated microSD slot.

These cards are available now for:
2GB microSD $34.99, 4GB microSDHC $59.99, 8GB microSDHD $119.99
2GB Memory Stick Micro M2 $39.99, 4GB $69.99, 8GB $129.99