Lexar Professional SILVER PLUS SDXC UHS-I Card 256GB Review

The Lexar Professional SILVER PLUS card is the mid-range offering in the Lexar Silver range of SD and microSD cards. The transfer speeds of these cards are very similar, particularly between the standard Silver and Silver Plus cards, with only a 10 MB per second difference in write speed separating the two. Both cards utilize UHS-I technology, while the Silver Pro card uses UHS-II technology, offering faster transfer rates but at a significantly higher price.

The Lexar Professional SILVER PLUS card is at the top end of the UHS-I options. Although it costs about £10 or $10 more than the standard Silver, for that price, you gain an extra 10 MB per second in write speed.
The Silver Plus card and the standard model are very similar when it comes to differences. Aside from the label on the front indicating the different write speed and the full “Silver Plus” branding, there is very little difference between the two.

When it comes to building and handling, the Lexar Professional SILVER PLUS SDXC UHS-I card, like all SD cards, strictly adheres to the SD card format. Because of this, it offers wide compatibility with most camera manufacturers, such as Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Fujifilm. The card will fit directly into the SD card slot and be instantly recognized by the camera.

The size and weight are standard, and the only thing that differentiates this card from others, including those from other manufacturers, is the label on the front, which highlights the branding, model, and capacity.

This card is typical of Lexar’s build quality, so it is strong and robust. The single line of contacts on the back indicates that this is a UHS-I card rather than a UHS-II. Overall, the handling is standardized, and there are no issues or concerns regarding the build quality or usability of the card.

Considering the features, the main difference that sets the Lexar Professional SILVER PLUS SDXC UHS-I Card apart from the standard Silver card is its write speed, which reaches up to 150 MB/s as apposed to 140MB/s, while the read speed remains at 205 MB/s. This card comes in several capacity options, ranging from 64 GB up to 1 TB, with denominations of 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB.

Like the standard Silver card, the Silver Plus is aimed at the enthusiast market, positioning it firmly in the mid-range. With a price point of around £40, it offers a good balance between performance and cost. The card’s performance has been designed to meet the needs of enthusiast photographers, and when used in cameras like the Sony A7 IV and Canon EOS R5C, it is more than capable of keeping up with their demands.

The card is rated with a V30 speed class, meaning it has a minimum write speed of 30 MB/s. This is more than sufficient to handle most burst shooting for short durations and recording HD and 4K video under typical conditions.

One of the notable features of Lexar SD cards is their durability, which has been built with the needs of photographers in mind. The card is waterproof, temperature-resistant, vibration-resistant, magnetic-proof, shockproof, and drop-proof, ensuring it will last a long time under normal use. Another valuable feature is the inclusion of the Lexar Recovery Tool, a software application that helps you recover deleted files from the SD card. While the software isn’t a miracle worker, it can recover many deleted files, making it a great addition to the package when purchasing this flash memory.

Like other Lexar cards, the SILVER PLUS comes with a limited lifetime warranty. If something goes wrong, you can send it back to Lexar for a potential replacement.

In the performance test, I used the Lexar Professional SILVER PLUS SDXC UHS-I Card in the Sony A7 IV. I tested it in various modes, including with JPEG and RAW combined and shooting at the highest resolution and quality settings, as well as using the video mode when shooting HD footage and 4K at up to 60 frames per second.

Starting with photography, the camera performed really well with the Silver Plus SD card installed. Shooting in JPEG and RAW together created a combined file size of around 80 MB per image. When switching the camera to burst mode, I was able to store about 20 images before the buffer filled, and the camera started to slow down, which is quite impressive.

This compares with the standard Silver card, which was able to store 17 images in both JPEG and RAW formats before slowing down. In contrast, when using a CFexpress Type A card, you can pretty much shoot non-stop without any slowdown whatsoever.

However, the Silver Plus’s performance was superb for an SD card and more than enough for most average shooting conditions. Considering the cost of the card, it’s still a strong option, although the difference in performance might only partially justify the additional cost over the standard Silver card.

Shooting video was similarly smooth, with the Silver Plus card handling 1080p and 4K video storage without any issues. If I were shooting higher-resolution footage, I would probably switch to using a CFexpress card. However, for shorter video shoots, the SD card was more than capable of keeping up with the action and storing the data efficiently.

One key feature that sets the Silver Plus card apart from the standard Silver is its read speed. Although it’s supposed to be the same as the Silver, it proved to be noticeably faster when copying files from the SD card to a computer. Surprisingly, in our tests, while the Silver Plus card stored the same amount of data as the standard Silver, its write speed was slightly behind the Silver during benchmarking, though still above the quoted amount from Lexar.

Overall, the Silver Plus’s performance, like the standard Silver’s, makes it a superb option for anyone looking for a relatively affordable, high-capacity card suitable for shooting high-resolution footage and stills.

At present, there is a huge selection of SD cards available, boasting UHS-I and UHS-II technology. The difference between the two technologies can be identified by the single row of contacts (UHS-I) or double row of contacts (UHS-II) on the back of the SD card. With cards like the Silver Plus, the margin between the improved performance of UHS-II and UHS-I is almost negligible, especially when considering the actual demands of the mirrorless and DSLR cameras that these cards are used in.

Throughout this test, the Lexar Professional SILVER PLUS SDXC UHS-I Card has proven to be a formidable option for mirrorless and DSLR cameras, able to keep up with the action and provide the storage speed and capacity required. While the speeds are very similar to the standard Silver card, the Silver Plus does have a slight edge in read speed. In real-world tests, it also managed to achieve a faster write speed than the standard Silver, though this was slight and conflicted somewhat with the benchmarking results, which were carried out on similar machines with consistent effects.

Overall, considering the cost compared to the standard Silver card, the Silver Plus might be the better option, especially if you’re shooting sports or wildlife and don’t want to stretch to the more expensive UHS-II or CFexpress cards. When it comes to speed, the Silver Plus is one of the fastest UHS-I cards on the market, and considering the price, it’s an absolute bargain.