Kingston Offers Lifetime Warranty on most Flash Memory Cards

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.kingston.com/press/2004/digitalmedia/08a.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.kingston.com/press/2004/digitalmedia/08a.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Kingston Technology Company, Inc.,the worldwide independent leader in memory products, recently instituted a lifetime warranty policy on most of its digital media products*. According to the new lifetime warranty, if any of Kingston's Compact Flash, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital or Smart Media products fails at any time, and the failure is caused by a defect in material or workmanship, Kingston will either repair or replace the product. Until now, the standard warranty on such products was five years."</i><br /><br />The technology industry has been known lately for reducing warranties in the never-ending cycle to increase profits for shareholders, regardless of the cost to consumers or the reputation of the company involved. I recently had a 120 GB Maxtor external Firewire hard drive go bad on me, and much to my dismay the warranty was only a year instead of the three years I was used to with older drives. So I greet this news from Kingston warmly - it's nice to see companies standing behind their products. Of course, the realistic side of me knows that they're doing this because Flash memory is so tough, and they're not going to lose money offering a lifetime warranty, but I'll take any longer warranty I can get. ;-)

[Mike Temporale]

Last week I was taking a co-worker camera shopping, and in this one shop we stopped in, the guy told us that this particular brand of flash memory was "level 6". He then went on to say how Sandisk is a "level 1" and that you can expect bad sectors and other problems with level 1 memory.

Now I am aware of SanDisks memory issues, however I have never heard of this level ranking. I'm sure he was just trying to justify the shorter than average warranty and extra high price. :roll:

Kingston hasn't been known for cheap memory, but lately I have noticed that their prices are more competitive. Add a lifetime warranty, and I'm interested.

[Ramin]

Whose lifetime? The product's lifetime or the user's lifetime? A product may be discontinued after a couple of years and its lifetime ends - there goes the warranty? The manufacturer's interpretation of "lifetime warranty" needs to be clarified.

I agree that Flash memory is tough (http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5322819.html?tag=st_lh), but in 5 years, I really doubt that we could find a 32MB SD card in retail (which you may still be able to buy today). Try getting a warranty replacement for a 8MB MMC, which you could have purchased a couple of years ago. There's a good possibility that the manufacturer would have to give you a larger size MMC replacement.

I think a clearly specified warranty period (e.g. 5 years) works to the user's advantage.