Kingston Class 10 UHS-I SDXC 256GB and MicroSD 128GB Review
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
Storage needs are increasing and Kingston answered by doubling the capacity of their SDXC and MicroSD Flash memory cards! The ‘big story’ here is that Kingston expanded their product line with these new high capacity cards. There is no new mind blowing feature here, so let’s wrap this up.
The Kingston 256GB Class 10 UHS-I SDXC memory card is the third 256GB memory card to come to market behind cards by PNY and Lexar. The good news is that Kingston leads the performance front with rated read speeds of 90MB/s and write speeds of 45MB/s. Our tests showed that in benchmarks like CrystalDiskMark that our results far exceeded the factory speed ratings as we topped out at 97MB/s read and 68MB/s write! These are impressive speeds and the even better news is that the Kingston 256GB Class 10 UHS-I SDXC memory card is priced $60 less than the Lexar Professional 600X 256GB SDXC card that has identical factory speed numbers.
We weren’t sure how well the Kingston 128GB Class 10 UHS-I microSD would do on the performance tests since Kingston did not release guidance on the read/write speeds on this model, so we were thrilled to see some solid performance numbers out of this tiny little card. On CrystalDiskMark we topped out at 67MB/s sequential read and 23MB/s sequential write. These are solid scores and this card should serve storage duty in smartphones, tablets and cameras without issue.
It appears that Kingston has successfully launched two high-capacity cards that are still capable of high-speeds that demanding consumers crave. This means photographers can shoot longer in the field and then come back to the office or home and quickly move their files to their editing machine with a USB 3.0 card reader. If you don’t have a USB 3.0 card reader it might be time to upgrade as many mainstream Flash memory cards are capable of transfer speeds beyond what USB 2.0 readers are capable of. If you are shooting full 1080P, 3D or 4K video, you’ll enjoy the speeds on this card when paired with a USB 3.0 reader as you can read the data on the card much faster!
When it comes to pricing the Kingston 128GB Class 10 UHS-I microSD that is sold under part number SDCX10/128GB for $124.97 shipped and the Kingston 256GB Class 10 UHS-I SDXC that is sold under part number SDA10/256GB for $199.80 shipped. Both drives are backed by a limited lifetime warranty in the event that they stop working. Keep in mind that the warranty by Kingston does not cover data recovery, so always keep your data backed up!
Legit Bottom Line: If you need more storage space Kingston has your back and now offers SDXC cards in capacities of up to 256GB and MicroSD cards in capacities of up to 128GB.