When I first bought my Handspring Treo 600 PDA/phone combo, I purchased this PNY 256 MB SD Card with it as well. I figured that 256 MB should be enough for a Palm-based PDA. That was before I was introduced to multimedia capabilities from third party software vendors and your everyday average programmer!

First, there was a program someone wrote that records movies using the built-in Treo camera (a bit buggy, but it works - doesn't save in a popular file format, though). Then cames pTunes (or Pocket Tunes) - an MP3/OGG/WMA player which can gobble up storage like...well... MP3s, OGGs, WMAs! Then there was Kinoma - a movie player that requires you to use it's own software on your PC to convert MPG, AVI, or MOV files to it's own specialized format for use in a PalmOS device. That gobbles up memory! And just recently, I found that Real Networks made a RealOne v1.51 player for the Palm as well!

So many software toys, so little memory! I eventually purchased an ATP 512 MB SD Card, which is also much faster than the PNY here (read on), but that was recently - I had the PNY card since I bought the Treo, and now I have a reason to review it - I was able to get another card to benchmark it against!

Package
The package was a full and colorful retail plastic pack that also contains a memory card storage cover, which is a nice touch. It is very form-fitting, and is as large as the SD Card itself. This is in contrast with the ATP's which is a large case that is at least twice as large as the SD Card that it houses.

The package was cut and the UPC was used for a $20 mail-in rebate, since the card was bought at Best Buy (along with the Treo). It came down to $60 after rebate (so about $80 out of pocket).

Performance
I'm pretty sure this is the most important part of the review, and what most of you people would skip to, so here it is:

QPS 8-in-1 USB 2.0 Digital Media Reader
Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz (OCed to 3.2GHz)
1 GB of OCZ dual channel DDR433 memory
Gigabyte GA-8KNXP i875 motherboard (onboard USB 2.0 used for testing)
Microsoft Windows XP SP 2
PNY 256 MB SD Card
ATP 512 MB SD Card (60x speed as claimed)
Tests were done with HD Tach 2.61


PNY 256 MB

Random Access Time - 1.1 ms
Read Burst Speed - 6.1 mbps

Read Speed Max - 5627.0 kps
Read Speed Min - 5335.0 kps
Read Speed Avg - 5564.4 kps

Write Speed Max - 1619.0 kps
Write Speed Min - 1366.0 kps
Write Speed Avg - 1433.8 kps

CPU Utilization - 5.5%


ATP 512 MB 60x

Random Access Time - 1.6 ms
Read Burst Speed - 5.7 mbps

Read Speed Max - 5415.0 kps
Read Speed Min - 5259.0 kps
Read Speed Avg - 5337.5 kps

Write Speed Max - 5074.0 kps
Write Speed Min - 3088.0 kps
Write Speed Avg - 4780.4 kps

CPU Utilization - 4.1%


Yikes! The PNY is just getting spanked all over the place compared to the ATP! And the ATP card actually costs LESS out of pocket, and pretty much cost the same as the PNY after PNY's rebate.

The read speed is a bit faster than the ATP, but the PNY falls flat on it's face when it comes to write speeds. This is evident when I use my Treo's camera feature to take snap shots - 640 x 480 resolution which equals to about 20-30k per picture. It takes about 8 full seconds before it finishes the save before you can take another picture! With the ATP, it only took mere seconds (about 3 to be precise).


Riddle Me This...
Although the test gave me no problems, the Treo's pictures get corrupted and unable to open and view on the Treo itself. The file name gets so bad it's just garble, and when you try to view a picture, it shows the same icon in the Blaze web browser when there is a bad link to a picture. Sometimes it gets so bad it would freeze the Treo up, or reboots it.

The only remedy is to copy the files to your PC (for some reason, the PC can read the files no problem), delete them off the card (start fresh), and put it back in the Treo.

The problem comes back every so often, but the Palm programs, applications, and music files (for the Pocket Tunes MP3 player) can be read, opened, and played fine. Even the portable version of PDF files could be open and read by the Palm Adobe Reader program. It's just the pictures that gets corrupted!


To Buy, or Not To Buy?
All memory is not created the same. You can see the results for yourself. Lexar was originally considered the faster memory (with its X ratings), but the generic branded (or is it up and coming?) ATP SD Card clearly whooped the PNY - a brand name card - in both price, capacity, and speed.

PNY's only pro is the read speed - and even THAT wasn't won by much. Thumbs down for PNY.

UPDATE 9/11/04: I just purchased the ATP 1 GB SD Card! Unfortunately, it is not on ePinions yet, but when it is, I will gladly update this review as well as add my review on that card to epinions as well.

UPDATE 10/14/2004: Here it is... the ATP 1GB SD Card 60x Speed.

Recommended: No