Pros:
*Relatively inexpensive for a Class 10 card.
*Decent benchmark speeds.
Cons:
*Actual in-camera speed noticeably slower.
*Every once in a while, the picture taken becomes corrupted.
Details:
I bought this card for use with my recently purchased Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 10MP Digital Camera with 12x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3 inch LCD (Blue), which states in the manual that it's best to have a card that has at least 10MB/s transfer speed. Class 10 means that the card is supposed to maintain a minimum write speed of 10MB/s, so I figured this would be a great match, especially having read other reviews of another Patriot LX series card (although only 16GB), stating that it works perfectly with the ZS3.
Prior to getting this card, I had been using a Sandisk SDSDX3-008G-E31 8GB Extreme III SD Card 30MB/s (RETAIL PACKAGE), and I was very happy with its speed, but wanted a higher capacity, so that I can take full advantage of the HD video capabilities of the camera. The Sandisk was only listed as "Class 6" because it was released before the Class 10 spec was released, but it certainly qualifies in benchmark tests, and the equivalent 32GB card (SanDisk Extreme SDHC 32GB Class 10 High Performance Card) costs twice as much as the Patriot LX, while the Panasonic equivalent (Panasonic RP SDW32GU1K - Flash memory card - 32 GB - Class 10 - SDHC) costs nearly three time as much, so the Patriot LX seems like a really good deal.
Curious as to how well it compares to the Sandisk Extreme III, I ran several benchmark tests, and the Patriot LX posted some impressive numbers, performing only marginally slower (tested with CrystalDiskMark)...
Patriot LX 32GB - Read / Write (MB/s)
1000M Sequential - 19.20 / 17.52
512K Random - 18.40 / 1.725
4K Random - 2.384 / 0.015
Sandisk Extreme III 8GB - Read / Write (MB/s)
1000M Sequential - 19.43 / 16.74
512K Random - 19.16 / 4.078
4K Random - 3.673 / 0.031
However, in low-level benchmark tests (using Flash Memory Toolkit), which tests the speed throughout the entire card, the program was unable to perform a write test, citing I/O error.
Patriot LX 32GB
Average read speed: 17.8 MB/s
Minimum read speed: 17.5 MB/s
Maximum read speed: 18.1 MB/s
Write speeds unavailable
Sandisk Extreme III 8GB
Average read speed: 18.2 MB/s
Minimum read speed: 17.6 MB/s
Maximum read speed: 18.4 MB/s
Average write speed: 16.3 MB/s
Minimum write speed: 15.2 MB/s
Maximum write speed: 17.4 MB/s
(So at least according to these benchmarks, the Sandisk doesn't live up to its 30MB/s claims, or even its typical 20MB/s claim.)
But more important than benchmark numbers is how well it actually performs in the camera. Here, the slower speed of the Patriot LX is really noticeable. From basic operations such as turning on the camera, taking pictures in "burst" mode, reviewing pictures in-camera, and deleting pictures, everything seems slower by at least half a second, as compared to the Sandisk.
I didn't know that the card read/write speed affected the camera's start-up time until I got this card. Before, I would turn on the camera, the lens cover would open, then the lens would extract, there would be an audible beep, and the screen would turn on. With the Patriot LX, there would be an extra second or two after the beep, before the screen would turn on. That's a huge problem if you want to catch those spontaneous moments in your life.
The "big" performance test with the camera is the "burst mode," where the camera will shoot pictures continuously at 1.8 frames per second. At the highest quality setting and 10.1 megapixels, the pictures average around 4 megabytes, which means the card needs to sustain a write speed of around 7.2 MB/s, or when the camera's buffer runs out, it will not be able to capture pictures as fast. In my tests, after about 4 or 5 sequential shots, the shooting slows down when using the LX, while the speed is maintained when using the Sandisk. So while the benchmark suggests it should be able to handle it, the reality is that it cannot.
What I've found is that, if I format the card in the camera, then it can sustain the burst speed, but then roughly around 10% of the pictures taken become corrupted, possibly because it cannot handle the speed. In the camera's playback mode, these pictures will not display, the camera will state that only the thumbnail is shown. When they're transferred to your computer, you'll see that the lower part of the corrupted pictures are missing.
HD videos recording in AVCHD Lite, on the other hand, seems to be fine. With the file size being much smaller thanks to the H.264 codec, it probably only needs a sustained writing speed of 2.2 MB/s. But with Motion JPEG, it also runs into problems, which doesn't become apparent until you try to watch the video.
I've contacted Patriot Memory's support via their website, and it's been over 48 hours, but I've yet to hear back from them. Hopefully this was just a "lemon" card, and not all of their "Class 10" cards are like this. I've also read elsewhere, where Patriot Memory's support team suggests that perhaps problems exist with devices not properly supporting the new Secure Digital spec, where Class 10 is defined. This shouldn't be the case for the Panasonic ZS3, however, considering that Panasonic is one of the three companies behind the Secure Digital technology (the other two being Sandisk and Toshiba), the new SD Card spec 3.0 was announced 5/21/2009, while the ZS3 I have is running firmware 1.2, released 6/15/2009--You'd think Panasonic would keep their cameras compatible with their own specs... Hopefully I hear from Patriot Memory soon. Patriot LX Series 32 GB Class 10 SDHC Flash Memory Card PSF32GSDHC10 (Black) - Memory Card - 32gb - Sdhc - Class 10'
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