Home > Consumer Reviews > SimpleTech STI-CF/256 256 MB CompactFlash Card

I just bought the Simpletech 256MB compact flash card for my Canon Powershot S30. I just popped the card in and it worked without the need to format it or do anything else. The write speed does seem faster than that of my backup card (128 MB Sandisk). I have not yet tested the read speed with my compact flash reader, but my Sandisk card was fast enough for me at that, so I don't expect much of a difference with the Simpletech card.

I bought the card to increase my image storage space, and based on the reviews I have read here, hopefully increase the speed of my camera in use. I tested the card using the high-speed continuous shooting mode on my camera. With the image resolution at its highest and the jpeg compression at its lowest, I could get off 5 pictures (indoors, ISO 400, no flash) before the camera buffer had to write to the card. This was no different than the performance with my Sandisk card, as it is dependant on the camera's internal memory as I understand it. However, I needed only wait about a second until the camera was ready to shoot again, a noticeable improvement over the Sandisk card.

In my limited test, I also shot a 30 second movie at 320x240 resolution. Again, the Simpletech card performed well, and after the movie completed, I experienced a very short wait until I could shoot again. The write speed of the card seems up to the claims of the reviews.

I recommend this card for its price, capacity, and speed. I also recommend Amazon.com. This was my 3rd or 4th order from them and I have been impressed with their service each time.

I've read many reviews about Compact Flash card speed and a couple of them here on Amazon. I read one review that listed some very high speeds for other brands, above 8000 kb/s. I don't know where that data came from, but in independant photo review sites, this SimpleTech card screams. No other brand was faster. By the way, no brand has ever tested in Camera's that even came close to 8000 kb/s or above.
Most CF cards test in at around 2000 Kb/s, some well known brands(SanDisk and Lexar) are at 800kb/s not 8000!!!! If you really want the truth, no card does well in Nikon's. They read at one bit, other cameras,Canon, Minolta etc read with 4 bits, are more advanced and produce superior results with both read and write speeds. The more advanced Camera's do make a difference. Check out independant reviews first, before you buy a camera or a card for your camera.

UPDATE: Well, I got it a few days ago and took some test shots with it on my Canon A40, plus tried both it and a more expensive SanDisk (128mb) card with the SimpleTech USB CF reader. I really didn't see a significant difference. Both were plenty fast in the camera and in the transfer. I cannot find fault.

I'll stick by the words below. You need to do your homework because some cameras don't work well with all cards, but if you've got a Canon, this baby works great.

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After reading the reviews, I decided to see if someone had tested a variety of cards. I found a good review at Digital Photography Review. They tested various high-capacity cards (512 mb range) in various cameras.

Yes, the Simpletech is one of the slowest cards in a Nikon 995. It came in at less than half the speed of a Lexar 16x. On the Canon EOS 1D and D30 as well as read/write tests on a firewire (IEEE 1394) card reader, the SimpleTech card beat the Lexar 16x every time.

It's not easy to pick the best CF card for your particular camera because there aren't good established benchmarking standards and what works great in one camera can be a dog in another. But from what I've seen in terms of people testing the SimpleTech, though it doesn't work well with Nikon, it works great with a lot of other cameras.

I've ordered one and I'll update this review when my Canon A40 and Simpletech 256 come in. For now I'll give it 4 stars so as not to distinctly affect the rating in one direction or another.

...and I'll take it! A 256 meg card in my Canon S100 set to its default resolution got a reading of 1578 shots available! That's an incredible amt of space and for someone heading off on an extended trip. I have been following CF costs on a dollar-per-meg basis for some time, and while the newest & largest cards have tended to carry a premium, this one does not. It is under fifty cents per meg, less than 1/4 of what it cost per meg only 18 months ago!

Card works but is VERY slow. These are the numbers obtained
with PCMCIA adaptor on my Linux box:

SimpleTech 256MB: write 2749KB/s read 1135KB/s
Mr Flash 128MB: write 9703KB/s read 5065KB/s
Sandisk 64MB: write 8831KB/s read 2319KB/s
Lexar 16MB: write 15636KB/s read 2044KB/s

Don't buy it if you:
a) want to take multiple-shot pictures (like best picture mode
in Nikon)
b) have high resolution high quality camera (storing 5Mp
TrueColor photo may take 6 seconds in uncompressed/raw mode!)
c) you want your pictures to transfer to your PC quickly and
you have USB2/PCMCIA/firewire CompactFlash reader.

d) you use slide adaptor in high resolution mode - files
then have 10MB and it takes 5s!!! to write them to this card