Certainly worth its (discounted) price!
I had read the other reviews prior to purchasing the product from Cloudtail on Amazon and frankly found all the references to ‘fake product’ quite disconcerting, more so as it seems to be one of the most bootlegged memory cards. However, I decided to go ahead with the purchase of the 64 GB variant as part of the lightning deal (Rs. 1499 – payment discounts), mostly due to the faith in Amazon’s customer service, should anything go wrong.
I received the product the day after I placed the order (in Mumbai), so there are no qualms about Amazon’s delivery. Frankly, I found it difficult to judge the genuineness of the product by its packaging since it is bound to change over time and is actually quite easy to imitate. The only way to verify the card was by actually testing it and so I ran a few tests on it.
As can be seen in the screenshots, h2test was able to successfully write a total 61023 MB which translates correctly to the 59.6 GB of free space (exFAT formatted) indicated by Windows (providing for digital to binary conversion and system files). As far as the speed is concerned, sequential read and write speeds went up to 85 MBps and 55 MBps respectively (screenshot attached) which is admittedly the best case case scenario, but at the same time is as advertised. One thing to note is that the Transcend USB 3.0 card reader/writer (capable of up to 130 MBps) on my Desktop maxed out the read/write speed at 34/22 MBps whereas I was able to attain the figure of 85/55 MBps on my tablet. So, the device you use the card in matters a lot when testing.
To address some of the more frequently asked questions, the card itself is manufactured in Korea while the adapter is made in China. The product was been directly imported from Korea by Samsung India and actually bears the Indian model code (ending in ‘IN’) on the back sticker with a MRP of Rs. 2699. The Indian import sticker also states a 10-year warranty which is limited to 1-year in case the product is used for surveillance. One source of confusion is that the product registration fails on the Samsung India website with an “invalid serial number”. Considering the Samsung India site has no reference to memory card warranties and the registration form accepts a 15-digit code, it would be wise to decipher that the Indian site is not made to register this product. On the other hand, I was able to fill up the product service form right up to the last step which does not require a valid serial number but does require proof of purchase. It is tricky but one can assume that Samsung India will honour the warranty.
To compare, my previous SD card was a Strontium Class 10 (non UHS-1) 32 GB card which delivered the speeds it promised. However, it self-corrupted 3-4 times in the past 2 years and that is something unacceptable considering that not all data is backed up or uploaded to the cloud all the time. More than the speed, I am hopeful about the endurance of the product as I plan to use it in a camcorder. Only time will tell whether this is money well spent.
Originally published on Amazon on 28th October 2015.
