Product Information

Are these items Compatible with your Device?

Follow the 3 steps below to make sure you make the right choice:

Get the right type:

It is important to get the right card for your device. E.g. look in the instruction book and it should state whether it takes Compact Flash or Secure Digital.

Get the right capacity:

Once you know which type of card to buy, you need to choose a size. The bigger the card the more it will be able to hold of whatever it is you plan to store on it, e.g. photographs, video, music tracks etc. The bigger the card the more expensive it will also be. Getting a card which is too small will be annoying, getting a card which is too big could be a waste of money.

Use the table below to help choose a size of card for your camera:

Memory Card Size	Camera Mega Pixel Rating.
	3MP	4MP	5MP	6MP	8MP	10MP
1GB	853	512	409	320	264	204
4GB	3412	2048	1638	1280	1048	816
8GB	6824	4096	3276	2560	2096	1632
16GB	13648	8192	6552	5120	4192	3264

 

Use the table below to help choose a size of card for storing music:

Memory Card Size	MP3		WMA
	Hours of music	No. of songs	Hours of music	No. of songs
2GB	30	500	64	1000
4GB	60	1000	128	2000
8GB	120	2000	256	4000
16GB	240	4000	512	8000

All figures in the above tables are approximations, based on continuous playback at 128 kbps MP3 and 3.5 min songs. Actual figures vary based on file size, resolution, compression, bit rate, content, host device, pre-loaded files and other factors.

The largest card you can afford may not necessarily be compatible:

It is very important you find out what the largest size of memory card your device can accept, an 8GB card may not necessarily work just because it physically fits in the slot. A camera designed 2 years ago could have worked with the memory cards available at the time, bigger memory cards are released to market all the time and a new, modern large card which was not around at the time your camera was manufactured may very well not work.

If you get a card which is too big for your device it may simply appear as a faulty card when it is not, and not work Or it may appear to work allowing you to take photographs for example, however when you come to download your photographs or to view them, they will not be readable, because your camera has not been able to correctly manage the additional space after its limited maximum, and the FAT (File Allocation Table) does not match up with what is actually stored. This is the worst problem, as you may be unaware all of the photographs you are taking are going to be lost, therefore it is important to get this right.

1. You can check the instruction book or contact the manufacturer of your device and ask them what size of cards your device has been tested with.
2. Search the internet for other users of your device/camera, or websites listing specifications of your device, including your manufacturer website.
3. Use on-line checkers, such as this one at Transcends website, or SanDisk's online checker. Simply enter your make and model and the sites will recommend one or several cards. They will recommend their own brand, make a note of the maximum size they state and you can use that information to buy whichever brand you like.
4. Use a forum, like ours, at this link, and simply ask the question.
5. Email us your question to customerservices@aim-digital.co.uk, and we may be able to help.
6. Of course if you already use a 16GB card for example, and need another 16GB card, you know it will be OK.

Get the right speed:

Speed is unlikely to cause any compatibility problems. However the faster the card the more expensive it will be, and it would be a waste of money to buy a Ferrari memory card for use in a Robin Reliant camera. Read the product descriptions as they will often state what the card in question is suitable for. A rough guide is that 300x speed is very fast, 100x - 133x is middle of the road and 10x - 40x is that starting point which is OK for pocket cameras up to 5 megapxiels.

When considering mobile phones, a faster card will be useful for playing or filming video, a slower card will do the job for storing music tracks or taking pictures with.

Terminology Used.

The CD can be considered as the first popular digital consumer item. It stored music as digital data (binary) as 1s and 0s. Each 1 and 0 is referred to as a bit, and there are 8 bits in a Byte. A CD player would read the data (to play music) at a rate of 150 KB/s, that's 150 KiloBytes per second, or 150,000 Bytes per second. This rate defines the data transfer rate we refer to today when comparing memory cards.

A 2x speed memory card will be capable of transferring data at twice the speed of a CD player reading a CD, which can be expressed as 300 KB/s. Therefore a 100x speed memorycard can transfer data 100 times faster than a CD player. This is 15000 KB/s which is better expressed as 15 MB/s (Mega Bytes per second).

When a memory card refers to data transfer speed of so many MB/s, assume it is referring to the write speed, unless it quotes both speeds.

Some manufacturers provide a "lifetime warranty", and provide estimates on their website of the number of read write cycles that a memory card can take, this would be its lifetime, not ours! Imagine a memorycard being full of switches, switch on is a 1 bit and switch off is a 0 bit. These switches wear out and a manufacturer quotes how many times the switches can be switched on and off. When it meets that limit, it has met it's lifetime.

Windows 98 introduced FAT32, which enabled it to use large capacity (at the time) hard drives, the previous FAT system in Windows 95 restricting the maximum size of hard drive to 2.1GB.

FAT stands for File Allocation Table. Memory cards use the same filing system, and like Windows 95, some devices like old digital cameras do not use FAT32, therefore memory cards larger than 2GB will not work. Sometimes cards larger than 1GB will not work. This is why it is important to check the maximum size of card your device can accept as explained above.

The File Allocation Table can be likened to a table of contents in a book. If you have a new, blank book, it is reasonable to assume you can write so many characters in it. However if you were to write in the first page "Table of Contents" and proceed to write down "Page1.....Page2.... Page3...." etc and then write a page number in the footer of each blank page, you have used up some of the book's capacity to store characters, yet it would still be considered empty, but organised ready for writing in. This is what formatting does.

Formatting a disk drive or memory card allows the computer to organise the media, and to erase it's contents, but it reduces its capacity, which explains why when you buy a 1GB drive, you will not be able to store 1GB of your own stuff, because it is formatted, and that alone takes up space. Problems occur when a computer cannot find a file in the File Allocation Table, so if you took a picture on your camera, then can't view it, it could be that the image is there but its location is not noted in the File Allocation Table, hence it is lost forever. This is a symptom of buying a card too large for the camera, as explained earlier above.

You'd think it would be more fair for manufacturers to quote formatted capacity, so if you buy 1GB, you can use the full 1GB for your data. But different systems (Windows, Mac, Linux etc) format drives differently, therefore the end capacity of a formatted drive differs, something a manufacturer has no control over.

If you have ever formatted a drive of any kind, and noticed there is a 'Quick Format' option, this option merely deletes the File Allocation Table so the drive appears blank to the computer, but it is not. An expert will be able to retrieve the data because that has not been wiped.

Different Memory Cards Explained:

We have information within our website explaining all about the different memory cards. When they were developed, who invented them, their technical attributes etc. Click here to go to this information.

Our Returns Procedure:

If you buy the wrong thing we'll, let us know and send it back and we'll refund you. If it has not been opened and hence is re sellable we'll provide a full refund. If it has been opened we may charge a 25% restocking fee to recover costs of selling a B-Grade item.

The problem with memory cards is that there was such a large problem with fakes, the manufacturers changed to packaging which has to be cut open and destroyed, so that con men can't get the hands on official packaging. Therefore please double check it is the right memory card before you get the scissor out.

If an item is faulty, simply contact us and we'll sort it out, all our items our covered by the manufacturers warranties.

If you send you the wrong item, let us know, and again, we'll sort it out.

You must not send anything back before contacting us and obtaining an RMA number from us.

To arrange a return, email us at customerservices@aim-digital.co.uk, telephone 01942 725252.

Stock Levels and Product Availability:

Stock is not updated dynamically, but a minimum of once a day. If you are intending to buy large quantities please phone 01942 725252 to confirm stocks levels.

We are here to help and we will backorder items you need from our suppliers, even things which aren't listed on this website (within reason).

Post and Dispatch Times:

If we receive your order before 2pm, we guarantee to send it that same day.

Click here to view our current Postage and Packaging charges.

About Us:

Our company name is AIM-Digital Ltd.

We are a Limited Company.

Our address is 287 Downall Green Road, Ashton in Makerfield, Wigan, Lancs. WN4 0NB.