SD Card Brand Comparison

Lonnie

Went to Walmart tonight and bought an Sans Disk 32 GB SD card for $9.98. It is a class 10 card and the package says 'fast for better pictures and full HD video'. Just to compare prices. I visited a camera store website. They sell Delkin 32 GB SD cards for $70.00. What is the difference between the two SD cards? Will my Nikon D3200 be okay with the Walmart SD card?

Thank you,

Lonnie

bruto

Some cards are UHS I and II and other characteristics which are more expensive. Different ratings describe the speed of reading and writing to the card, and may be more important for video than still use. Not all of these are utilized by the camera. A D3200 can take advantage of UHSI but not higher, and will probably work as fast as need be with a class 10 card. Higher rated cards will work, but the camera simply won't take advantage because its internal speeds are slower than the card's.

In addition, different brands and generations go on sale from time to time, and it's a cutthroat business. Wal Mart gets lots of volume, and their price can be hard to beat. Some cards these days are also made with extra protection and durability, for which you may pay extra too.

Assuming it's a genuine card and not a counterfeit (which is probably OK from a big retailer like WM), SanDisk is a good brand, and likely to be fine. A D3200 does not need the most exotic new style cards, and class 10 is as much video speed as was called for when it was new.

I've never had problems with cards of this sort, and it's likely to be fine. However, you should always give your card a good test to make sure it is not going to be glitchy before going too far from home, always take at least one spare, and depending on the computer, don't edit files on the card when the card is in the computer's writer. I've had computer-generated errors kill the files on a card. Download them all first, and always format in the camera.

Here's a web page that helps to explain the different ratings.

https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_class/

Lonnie

Thank you very much for the advice.