Reviews |Samsung EVO Plus microSD card review

Samsung EVO Plus microSD card review

Samsung EVO Plus microSD card review 256GB card
Review

A memory card can seem an annoying extra expense when you’ve maxed out your credit card on a nice camera but remember, it’s a vital accessory that should keep your images safe. A fast card will also ensure that you get the best burst depth from your camera when you shoot continuously and enable 4K video recording.

Samsung is a world leader in memory technology and its memory cards have impressed us in the past so I was pleased to receive a sample of the new Samsung EVO Plus microSD card to review. It’s a UHS-I, speed class 3 card available in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. This review is based upon a 128GB sample.

The Samsung EVO Plus microSD card is designed to operate at temperatures of from -25°C to 85°C (-13°F to 185°F) and can withstand temperatures of -40°C to 85°C (-40°F to 185°F) as well as standard airport x-ray machines and the magnetic field equivalent of a high-field MRI scanner – useful should you need to take an SD card in an MRI scanner.

As it’s a microSD card the new Samsung EVO Plus microSD card is suitable for use in some phones as well as action cams like the GoPro Hero5 Black or GoPro Hero5 Session. However, it’s supplied with an SD card adaptor which means you can use it in any situation in which you’d use an SD card. I used it in several cameras, including the 50Mp medium format Fuji GFX 50S and the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II.

Samsung quotes a read speed of up to 100 MB/S and a write speed of up to 90MB/s (60MB/s for the 64GB card), the old EVO Plus microSD card had a claimed read speed of 48MB/s. I used SpeedTools QuickBench to measure the 128GB sample’s performance with my mid 2014 MacBook Pro using a USB 3.0 card reader and got the following figures:

Maximum read speed 90.8MB/s
Maximum write speed 82.8GB/S
Average read speed 90.5GB/s
Average write speed 80.4GB/s

In normal use I was able to transfer 3.08GB of images made up of 61 Fuji X100F files and 15 Fuji GFX files from the card to my MacBook in less than 35.3 seconds. Meanwhile 12.64GB of files made up of 418 images transferred in 2 minutes 16 seconds (writing them to the card took 3 minutes 45 seconds). Turning to video, a 2 minute clip of 4K video (867.8MB in size) transferred from the card to my computer in just under 21 seconds.

With the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II in Sequential High mode (10fps) I was able to shoot 50 simultaneous raw and jpeg images (100 files in total) in just under 5 seconds and it took a further minute for the files to write to the EVO Plus microSD card.

Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II review

Price

The Samsung Evo Plus MicroSDHC has a suggested retail price of:

32GB £22.99
64GB £39.99
128GB £78.99
256GB £172.99

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Verdict

Memory cards aren’t the sort of thing that you get excited about, there the sort of thing that you want to buy and use without any issues. I’ve used the Samsung Evo Plus MicroSDHC card extensively since receiving it and in variety of different cameras and it’s performed consistently well throughout. Its write speed ensures that camera buffers clear quickly while its read speed enables images and video to transfer quickly to a computer.

Add in the fact that the card is waterproof and airport x-ray-proof and you have a good solid proposition that provides plenty of storage capacity. The fact that it can be used as either a microSD or an SD card in the supplied adaptor is a bonus for anyone with a GoPro and an SD-compatible DSLR or mirrorless camera.