Samsung unveils class-leading EVO Plus 256GB microSD card
For a while there was a scary trend of Android manufacturers shying away from expandable storage. Thankfully, consumer demand largely reversed that course. Many of the newest flagships, such as the HTC 10 and Samsung Galaxy S7, are embracing microSD cards. The versatile card format is utilized in many other types of devices too.
Today, Samsung announces the class-leading EVO Plus 256GB MicroSD Card. If you recently bought SanDisk's 200GB card, you no longer have the largest. With that said, the price tag for this 256GB card is rather high -- more than double SanDisk's 200GB offering.
"The EVO Plus 256GB raises the bar for capacity and performance of microSD cards thanks to Samsung's advanced V-NAND technology, offering high read and write speeds of up to 95MB/s and 90MB/s, respectively. This level of performance will provide general consumers and professionals with superb user convenience for storing heavy-loaded, high-resolution photography and 4K video recording, as well as graphic intensive multimedia like virtual reality (VR) and gaming", says Samsung.
Un-Soo Kim, Senior Vice President of Brand Product Marketing, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics explains, "with the upward trend of consumers using high-performance, high-capacity mobile devices, our new, V-NAND-based 256GB microSD card solution allows us to deliver the memory card consumers have been craving. Our EVO Plus 256GB microSD card, will provide consumers with large capacity, and high read and write speeds. We are excited to offer our customers convenient and seamless multimedia experiences when they access, store and share all of the content they create and capture".
Samsung shares the following features.
| Category | Samsung EVO Plus 256GB | |||
| Capacity |
-- 256GB of content storage |
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| -- Up to 55,200 photos | ||||
| -- Up to 12 hours of 4K UHD video | ||||
| -- Up to 33 hours of full HD video | ||||
| -- Up to 46 hours of HD video | ||||
| -- Up to 23,500 MP3 files/songs | ||||
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Samsung 4-Proof Features |
-- Waterproof (IEC 60529, IPX7) |
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-- Temperature-proof |
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-- X-ray-proof |
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-- Magnetic-proof |
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| Transfer Speeds |
-- Read and write speeds of up to 95MB/s and 90MB/s, respectively |
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| Speed Class |
-- UHS-1, Class 10, (U3) compatible |
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| Warranty | Limited 10-year |
So, how much will this tiny card with monstrous capacity cost? A rather pricey $249. You are almost paying a dollar per GB. Comparatively, the 200GB SanDisk card retails for $99, but often sells for less -- I paid $60 on Amazon.
If you are willing to splurge to have a top-of-the-line storage card (from a capacity perspective, at least), you can part with your money in June when it goes on sale. While the price is high, the decade long warranty and reputable "Samsung" brand makes the pill a bit easier to swallow.
Will you buy it? Tell me in the comments.