The ultimate storage card for your Android also works great for cameras and laptops
Reviewing an SD card is hard. They pretty much work, or they don't. But when Sandisk releases a 128GB micro SDXC card, we have to get one and check it out.
Storage junkies, meet your dream. After formatting and the few odd system files and folders Android puts on any removable storage, you have a full 119GB of space on top of whatever meager offering the folks who made your phone gave you. That's about 100,000 high-res pictures, 40,000 songs, or 30 full length HD DVD rips. In short — it's a whole lot of space for the things you need a whole lot of space for.
Your need for speed
The card itself is the exact same as any other micro SD card, other than the capacity. It's class 10, so the read and write speed is good — listed at 30 MB/s read speeds, but ours was actually higher! Fast speeds means it won't struggle while shooting HD video, or playing it back. After the capacity, the card speed is the most important thing about an SD card, and class 10 is pretty good. Our SD card speed tests (using the A1 SD Bench app) came in at 38.28 MB/s read, and 15.16 MB/s write speeds on the Sony Xperia Z1s, with no hacks or sd speed boosts installed.
The package comes with a Sandisk adapter, so you can use the card in a camera or a laptop. This is a good thing, because it's also an excellent card for your camera or your laptop. It was able to take full resolution video and burst mode captures from both a Nikon DSLR and a Pentax point and shoot without any hiccups and at a nice clip thanks to the class 10 speed rating. When you plug it in to a computer, the transfer speeds were excellent as expected. All around, performance was very good.
KitKat woes
The card is everything you would want in a phone running Jelly Bean. Full-tilt reading and writing with any app, in any folder. But with KitKat — and the changes Google has made to Android — things are different. This isn't the fault of the card, as the things it is allowed to do are still nice and speedy. Tested in the Note 3 running KitKat, you still have the full 119GB of space, but you don't have the ability to write files anywhere and everywhere from your phone. We covered this and the reasons behind it right here, and it's worth a look — especially if you have a KitKat device and are thinking of dropping a few bucks on a new high-capacity SD card.
The verdict:
All in all, I can recommend this card if you need the storage and have a phone that can use SDXC cards. I've tested in the Note 3, the Xperia Z1s, the Xperia Ultra and the Tegra Note 7 and had no issues other than KitKat "issues." The card should also work fine in the Galaxy S4 series. It's not cheap — checking in at $119.99 on Amazon — but if you have the need for this much storage you'll be paying for it. Chances are the price will drop when and if other companies start to offer similar products. In the meantime, this is the big daddy many of you have been waiting for — and it works great!
Buy the Sandisk 128GB micro SDXC card at Amazon for $119.99
