Pros: Capacity, price, speed and construction/durability
Cons: Fewer and fewer devices are using CF; newer cameras use SD cards
The Bottom Line: If you are shopping for a CF card, the Kingston Elite Pro 4GB CompactFlash Card is an inexpensive, capacious, and fast CF card. I highly recommend...
dkozin's Full Review: Kingston CF/4GB-S2 133x CF Card
With increase in digital camera resolution and recent low prices of memory cards, it seems that you cannot have enough of them. They are so cheap now that useing RAW format is no longer financially unpleasant. I have used the Kingston Elite Pro 4 GB CompactFlash card recently with cameras that accept CF (e.g. Canon Digital Rebel XTi and Canon Digital Rebel XT). I am very satisfied with its build quality, access speed, reliability and price.
What is Kingston Elite Pro 4 GB CompactFlash Card?
The Kingston Elite Pro 4 GB CompactFlash card is a high-speed CompactFlash flash memory card for use in digital cameras and other electronic devices.
This flash card belongs to the premium line of Kingston flash media (with faster speed than the standard line). Kingston claims that Elite Pro cards feature higher write speeds and lower power consumption.
The 4GB Elite Pro CompactFlash card is rated as 133x speed and can be used as storage media in digital cameras, for backups using a memory card reader and even for exotic uses like to transfer MP3 music to hard drive-based music player in the new 2007-2008 Infiniti G35 sedan with navigation system.
Usage
The CF media cards are not the most compact media, but they are cheap, robust and are used in many digital SLR cameras, especially in professional models. Although most newer digital cameras use SD cards, CF is still widely used in more professioinaly-oriented cameras.
I have used this card with multiple digital cameras and have never had a problem. There seemed to be no bottleneck in writing to this card imposed by the card itself (at least comparing to other cards).
The read speed for transferring data to my computer using Zio memory card reader is very fast and reached 6 Megabytes per second (might be limited by my reader or computer). This is about 40x, which is pretty good. The write speed approached 4 MB per second. I think the bottleneck here is not the card, but my reader.
Capacity
At 4 GB, the card lets me store (depending on format and resolution) about 1500-1800 JPEG photos or about 280-300 TIFF or RAW photos.
Durability
The card appears to be of excellent build quality and features robust construction. Since the card has no moving parts, I expect high reliability and durability, especially taking into account the fact that I am careful. My previous cards, for instance, have no signs of use on the exterior and work as well as new.
Warranty
The card came with lifetime warranty. Of course, the warranty will not help you if your valuable photos are lost. Therefore, backup is essential. As soon as feasible, I copy my photos to my computer and burn them on CDs or DVDs. But again, with no moving parts the card will probably work for a very long time.
Durability
As of 04/2009, I have used two of these cards for 8 months and they work perfectly.
Bottom Line
If you are shopping for a CF card, the Kingston Elite Pro 4GB CompactFlash Card is an inexpensive, capacious, and fast CF card. I highly recommend it.
No matter how fast you work, the Elite Pro can keep pace with its ultra-fast transfer rates of up to 8 MB/sec. write performance and a read speed of 1...More at eCOST.com
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