Sandisk or Kingston? 256 or 512 MB?

[toxostoma]

Hey guys. Sorry for the post... In some ways, I could have easily asked these questions in another thread that was just started recently. I thought my question was a little different and would get better attention as it's own thread.

Background: I'm in the market for a SD card for my iPAQ 1940. I actually jumped on the sears.com deal and ordered a 512 MB SD card for $100.

Question 1: Obviously some people have had very bad experiences with Sandisk cards. It seems that others have escaped the bullet. Just how bad is it? Does anyone have any information they could share that's different thta, "mine failed - they all suck." Any ideas on what the problem is, how likely it is to affect a card (is a guarentee that it'll fail, 50-50, what?) And with that, are the Kingston's more reliable (I'm certainly guessing they are). Are they any faster? I could not find any official or reliable ratings on the speeds of the two cards... I'm certainly willing to consider canceling my order and spending more for the Kingston if it'll save me a lot of headaches.

Question 2: (This one is a little different than other SD questions asked recently on the boards). What size capacity do I need? I know that I could probably make do with 256, but eventually, I might want the extra space. It'll also be nice being able to fit extra music on the card if I wanted to... How big are movies? If I ever wanted to convert a movie digitally to watch on my ppc, would it fit on 256 MB, or would I need 512? Say something like Braveheart (which is very long)... What size card would I need?

Finally, let me thank you for your patience. I hate when people ask stupid questions or fail to search around on the net when answers could easily be gotten there. I've tried some google searches and searching on these boards, and didn't find quite what I asked here... No doubt it's out there, I just didn't find it.

Thanks!

[dh]

For some reason I couldn't get the Sears shopping cart to work so I went ahead and ordered the Kingston.

I've had a 256MB Sandisk since March and have had a couple of problems with it. It seems that transfering large files via ActiveSync causes the card to get corrupted. I've had to re-format a couple of times to get my card working again. I have an Axim which has been one of the worst offenders. Using a card reader to put large files on the card works much better. A couple of apps on my SD card have just started giving a card error when I try to start them so it looks like format time again.

Regarding the size you need, you can never have too much memory. I have a 1GB CF card and would love to have a larger one as mine is always nearly full. I use my Axim for music, books and movies so the card soon fills up. I only have about 100MB of space, and that's with no movies on the card at present - lots of music though.

Most movies I have encoded are around 200 - 250MB in size. I encoded that most recent Harry Potter movie for my daughter and that was nearly 300MB, rather a long film. I could probably mess with the settings and get them a bit smaller, but the quality is good at that size.

So I would suggest you always get the most memory that your budget allows - that's why I still prefer CF and insist on two slots. You will certainly find you soon find stuff to fill it up.

[Palmguy]

I agree, get as big as you can. I've just today reached 512 megs of memory, and I plan on loading up lots of stuff on it. You can never have too much memory.

As far as Sandisk, I really like their cards. Never bought any other SD card, and never had any problems with them. Some people have, I personally haven't.

[shawnc]

I agree totally with palmguy. No problems with sandisk and the more memory the better. I've been told that the speed of the card is significant if used in a digital camera and sandisk supposedly rates poorly in this area. But for a PPC I don't think speed is an issue, which is why sandisk works fine for me.

[Rickyohead]

more memory, the merrier--but--make sure you don't get something too big. i'd prefer several 512mb disks rather than one 2gb card. that way, if your card crashes, you don't loose 2gb of data.

[pocketpcfox]

more memory, the merrier--but--make sure you don't get something too big. i'd prefer several 512mb disks rather than one 2gb card. that way, if your card crashes, you don't loose 2gb of data.

I suppose... but just think about trying to remember the location of 500 megs of files, times four!!! Maybe it's just easier to backup that 2gb card regularly?