Help Micro SDHC card discussion for the Evo 3D.

[Deleted User]

thanks a ton, think i might go ahead and get this.

 

[marctronixx]

the link ebola posted is the one verizon sells. thats the one i purchased for the evo last year.

 

[Cashprizes]

Hey guys thanks for all the feedback + extra discussion.

I ended up buying the Lexar 32gb class 10 with reader from Amazon for $84. It sounded like the consensus was phones would really only see increased performance from a class 6 and class 10 was superfluous, but I seriously couldn't find a 32gb class 6 from a major brand name (Lexar, patriot, sandisk) for cheaper, so I just went with the Lexar.

Had gotten really good user reviews and benchmarks, once again not really surpassing class 6's, but there didn't seem to be many detractors or horror stories of people ordering a lexar and getting some knockoff forgery in the mail.

 

[ebolamonkey3]

Had gotten really good user reviews and benchmarks, once again not really surpassing class 6's, but there didn't seem to be many detractors or horror stories of people ordering a lexar and getting some knockoff forgery in the mail.

Yea, that's why I transferred 20gb of movies to my SD card to test the capacity.

 

[Djblue11]

I'm about to buy this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211546
I also made a new account so I could use the $10 of $50 coupon making the total $53 including tax

 

[marctronixx]

which card are you purchasing djblue? link goes to a list of suggested products..

 

[cobalt]

which card are you purchasing djblue? link goes to a list of suggested products..

I think there was a URL parsing problem -- it included the period at the end of the link.

Try this, I think it's what the link was originally intended to go to:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211546

 

[Djblue11]

I think there was a URL parsing problem -- it included the period at the end of the link.

Try this, I think it's what the link was originally intended to go to:
Newegg.com - ADATA 32GB Class 4 Micro SDHC Flash Card with V3 USB Reader (Black/Blue) Model AUSDH32GCL4-RM3BKBL

Yes this was the link I tried to put up, I accidentally put a period at the end.
Also here is the same card minus the reader which is on sale for $49.99 Newegg.com - ADATA 32GB Class 4 Micro SDHC Flash Card with Adapter Model AUSDH32GCL4-RA1
but since it is technically not $50 the coupon can't be used with it, and since I have to pay tax the other one would be cheaper.

 

[novox77]

I just read this whole thread. One thing to keep in mind: it's not just about handling the bitstream of burst photos or streaming videos. Ever click the gallery app and have to sit and wait while the app generates the thumbnails? Or view the photos and they are all fuzzy for a while until the app can fully render the detail? That's all caused by a slow SD card. Get a fast one, and your thumbnails and photos load near instantaneously.

We android users (well most of us, not Nexus S apparently) have the flexibility to change out our memory via the sdcard. And here, we actually control how fast or laggy our phone behaves. I say go all out and get the class 10. Camp the eRetailer of your choice; they are often offering a discount on them. You can get one for a great deal if you're patient.

Others have already mentioned the benefit of being able to transfer large volumes of data to and from the sdcard via computer. If you're doing that often, the extra speed is well worth it IMO. Moving NANDroids, movies, huge music collection, photos, etc... You notice the speed every time you touch that sdcard.

Obviously if you're frugal, you can live without these perks; for sure they are not essential. It comes down to your budget and whether these speed boosts are worth the extra $$. For me, an extra $20 or so to jump from class 6 to class 10 is totally worth it, especially if I get a large capacity card I can use on my next 3 phones.

FYI: patriot 16 GB class 10 on amazon is $29.50 atm. Great deal.
Amazon.com: Patriot Signature 16 GB Class 10 MicroSDHC Flash Memory Card PSF16GMCSDHC10: Electronics

reviews seem to be either very good or very bad. I own this card, and it works fine. recommended to my by Akazabam over on the Evo 4G root forums...

 

[cobalt]

Ever click the gallery app and have to sit and wait while the app generates the thumbnails? Or view the photos and they are all fuzzy for a while until the app can fully render the detail? Get a fast one, and your thumbnails and photos load near instantaneously.

That's an incredibly good point, and one I don't hear mentioned often. I probably wouldn't care too much about waiting a little longer to transfer MP3s or photos, but I definitely care about the responsiveness of the UI.

 

[RAdroider]

Sorry for the noob like question. How does the 32 gb external memory work? Does that mean you have to buy a different product to put in? Could someone point me in the right direction.

Preordered the phone today, returned my nexus last week.

 

[EarlyMon]

No need to ever apologize for noob questions around here!

We were all noobs once ourselves.

The extra memory comes on little add-in device called a microSDHC card.

The Evo 3D will come with one already installed with 8 GB capacity.

I'm going to move your post to the thread discussing deals on the ins and outs of the bigger, better 32 GB ones - I'll bet that will fill in a lot more info as well.

 

[EarlyMon]

Go ahead and hit page refresh, and you'll see the thread you need.

 

[RAdroider]

so basically the phone as is holds 12, and i can replace the 8 gb one with up to 32? I'm assuming its easy to do?

Thanks for the help

 

[EarlyMon]

so basically the phone as is holds 12, and i can replace the 8 gb one with up to 32? I'm assuming its easy to do?

Thanks for the help

Sure, don't mention it.

Yep - super easy.

Here's the phone with the back removed - http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-3d/346198-htc-evo-3d-full-specs-techies-dummies-3.html#post2797573

Bottom of the pic is a big flat square, says HTC in gray - battery.

Above it and to the left of the lower camera lens is a little black thing with a kinda copper-colored strap going across it - that's the memory card.

Pop out battery, slide out old card (going down), slide in new, replace battery and cover - phone menu will format it for you.

Ta da! That's the whole enchilada!

 

[Vanquished]

I got the Kingston 32gb class 10. It is definately better than the class 2 8gb card that I had, but it's a long shot from the minium 10mb/s a class 10 card boasts. I transfered about 2gb worth of music over to the card and ths speeds started out around 8mb/s. By the time the transfer was finished the speed was around 4.5-5mb/s. Also note that the transfer was made directly from the PC and not using the phone.

Another thing I noticed was their little disclaimer on the back of the package that says "speed may vary depending on host hardware and software."

 

[NeoteriX]

FYI, I was able to get a hold of a 1080p video shot from an HTC Sensation. The video was encoded in H.264 and the audio was encoded in AAC, with a bitrate that seemed to average ~10 megabits/s. If we were to take an extreme of 12-13 mbps bitrate, then in theory a class 2 SD card would be sufficient (again in pure theory), as that bitrate equals ~1.62 Megabytes/s and Class 2 cards are rated up to 2 Megabytes/s.

Also keep in mind that this is a 1080p video, so there is every likelihood that the Evo 3D which records at a maximum resolution of 720p may have an even lower bitrate.

Even if you wanted a little insurance to protect yourself against fluctuating throughput issues, a class 4 would likely have more than enough throughput to handle any HD video that the Evo 3D could record.

 

[BenChase7]

^^
Good info, thanks. I hear the 3vo is coming with a class 4 card too. (upgraded from the class 2 the EVO 4G has.) I was hoping for this.

 

[jcunwired]

Advice from an old geek: Always buy the best you can afford, and never look back in regret.

Carry on.

 

[RAdroider]

anybody see any good sales lately or have a good recommendation for a 16 or 32 one?

 

[Djblue11]

anybody see any good sales lately or have a good recommendation for a 16 or 32 one?

The 32gb class 4 card in my previous post is still on sale at newegg for $50 and it has good reviews

 

[RiverOfIce]

I just read this whole thread. One thing to keep in mind: it's not just about handling the bitstream of burst photos or streaming videos. Ever click the gallery app and have to sit and wait while the app generates the thumbnails? Or view the photos and they are all fuzzy for a while until the app can fully render the detail? That's all caused by a slow SD card. Get a fast one, and your thumbnails and photos load near instantaneously.

Not really. The math just does not hold up. Lets say that you have a 2mb picture. The class 2 card should be able to load that picture in less then 1 second. If you had a class 10 card, would load the picture in less then 1/10th of a second. The difference between 1/5th of a second and 1 second is not really processable to the human mind. And that is just the transfering speeds.

The difference in just the read times, class 2 card should beable to get about 8MBPS read time and the class 10 should be able to get about 16 MBPS.

That would take a 2 MB thumbnail ( 2MB is the same as a 8megapixel jpg) less then 1/4 of a second for the class 2 card and about 1/32 of a second for the class 10 card. Now we are way pass the ability of the humans to see the difference in the actual loading of an image.

Loading a thumbnail is even worst, given that it would be like 200KB, which would be like 1/320 of a second for class2 and like 1/1640 for a class 10, (that is just a guess).

In the real world, unless you are reading and writing massive files to the card consistency you would never be able to tell the difference between the performance of a class 2 card compared to a class 10 card. In order to notice the difference, you would have to transfer more then 2 MB files consistency between the cards.

When you have a issue with thumb nails appearing it more likely a problem with the drivers or the thumb nail has to be created, rather then a simple display.

Once again, the size of the thumb nail vs the transfer speed, the math just does not hold up.

PS, I have a ton of cards, all speeds. In the real world, I use a class 10 card only for 1080p playback, but a class 4 card works to. For simple pictures, 720p, and music, a class 2 card is faster then most of you need. On the other hand, transference large files, like 5 gigs +, you really do see the difference in transfer speed.

 

[ovrrdrive]

When you put 800 pictures on the card and then flip through the gallery it makes a huge difference having a faster read rate on the card. Especially the first time you load it after a fresh wipe and have to wait for it to build the thumbnails. I've seen this first ahnd several times when playing with the read buffer on my evo. When set stock it takes the evo about 5 minutes to load all of the pictures but it's less than a third of that when set properly. It's very easy to see in real life even if your math says it doesn't hold up...

I'm pretty sure the access times are faster on the quicker cards too which adds fuel to the fire.

 

[yourfriendmat]

Not really. The math just does not hold up. Lets say that you have a 2mb picture. The class 2 card should be able to load that picture in less then 1 second. If you had a class 10 card, would load the picture in less then 1/10th of a second. The difference between 1/5th of a second and 1 second is not really processable to the human mind. And that is just the transfering speeds.

The difference in just the read times, class 2 card should beable to get about 8MBPS read time and the class 10 should be able to get about 16 MBPS.

That would take a 2 MB thumbnail ( 2MB is the same as a 8megapixel jpg) less then 1/4 of a second for the class 2 card and about 1/32 of a second for the class 10 card. Now we are way pass the ability of the humans to see the difference in the actual loading of an image.

Loading a thumbnail is even worst, given that it would be like 200KB, which would be like 1/320 of a second for class2 and like 1/1640 for a class 10, (that is just a guess).

In the real world, unless you are reading and writing massive files to the card consistency you would never be able to tell the difference between the performance of a class 2 card compared to a class 10 card. In order to notice the difference, you would have to transfer more then 2 MB files consistency between the cards.

When you have a issue with thumb nails appearing it more likely a problem with the drivers or the thumb nail has to be created, rather then a simple display.

Once again, the size of the thumb nail vs the transfer speed, the math just does not hold up.

PS, I have a ton of cards, all speeds. In the real world, I use a class 10 card only for 1080p playback, but a class 4 card works to. For simple pictures, 720p, and music, a class 2 card is faster then most of you need. On the other hand, transference large files, like 5 gigs +, you really do see the difference in transfer speed.

Well I've had the same experience as novox. Maybe neither of us knows enough about how the gallery app is loading pictures on the Evo 4G for us to be certain one way or the other, but my personal experience says that it's much more snappy with a class 10 card. Before, I would click the gallery button and be staring at a bunch of grey boxes. I would scroll to the end, wait a few seconds, and then all the thumnails would load. After that, I would select a picture and it would fill the screen and become all fuzzy. Then it would sharpen up somewhere between 0.5 - 1 second.

With the faster SD card, all the thumbnails load as I speed through the album and the picture is sharp as soon as I open it. Novox had mentioned this the day I bought my new SD card, and that was literally the only thing that changed in my setup, so we can assume it isn't attributable to any other cause. Perhaps it only shows itself if you have a lot of pictures. I have a few hundred because my cats are so darn cute (Don't hate, the girlfriend made me get them, and now I'm attached.)

EDIT: To clarify my remark about not knowing how the gallery app works: I'm just not sure that reading is the only thing happening. The app probably writes the thumbnails to the card, does some sort of indexing that might be saved to the card, reads index data or other metadata. I'm just saying that there could be a lot more going on than just simply loading a picture. Then again, I'm pretty clueless about those sorts of things. Anyone here know how it works?

 

[darynm]

I found a card on Newegg from PNY 16 gig class 10 speed that seems new, but positive comments thus far. Price seems good at 27.99 with free shipping. Amazon also has this card for 34.99 with a couple good reviews. I just ordered one.

Newegg.com - PNY 16GB Micro SDHC Flash Card for Tablet PCs Model P-SDU16G10TEFM1

Amazon.com: PNY 16 GB microSDHC Flash Memory Card P-SDU16G10TEFS2: Electronics