I have a Canon S400 and it came with a 32MB, which shortly became my backup but I have yet to run out of space on this 256MB card. I have taken it on numerous trips and taken tons of pictures and long videos and still had lot of room.

I was thinking of getting a reader but I figured I would try it first, the speed with my cameras software was very fast, there was absolutely no need for a reader. I've downloaded about 80 pictures and videos in 3/4 minutes. Just let it download in the background as I do other things online, and in a few minutes it done. The camera comes with ZOOMBROWSERX so maybe that's just good combination, I don't know I just know if I were to get another card it would be this one and it would be SimpleTech.

When I buy a card next time, I have to read each and every review and see how many people with G3 got into trouble.

Stay away from this company.

If you intend to use it for digital music or cameras of 2 megapixels or so in resolution, great--the card will work just fine. Its 8MB burst and sustained 1.5MB write speeds even work okay in larger resolution cameras for low shooting rates; however, the real bottleneck I found in both my cameras and my laptop was its read time--which could take over a couple of seconds per shot when reviewing pictures!

When compared to speed demons like SanDisk's Ultra II cards--or even my backup Vikings--the SimpleTech simply didn't read back quickly enough for my liking. Still, it's on the low end price-wise for 256 MB cards, and for many people the card will work just fine.

After a dozen pictures taken with the SimpleTech card, started getting CF errors on the camera display.

Reviewed the Canon owners manual for this error, and acted upon the recommendation to format the card. After reformatting the SimpleTech card, still receive CF Errors when using in the camera after 1 or 2 photos. I am returning the SimpleTech card through Amazon's wonderful return policy. I really do love this e-tailer!

My "meager" Cannon 32MB card is chugging along just fine....

Works very well. No complaints, no errors.

I also have a Kingston 256MB Cf card. Both work well. But i seem to get longer battery life with the Simpletech.

Got my rebate cheque within one month of posting out.

Used in a Toshiba e740

The same cannot be said for two other Viking Cards, one 512 MB, one 256 MB. Both worked in the beginning, then days later generated corrupt image files. (Go to Viking compact flash 512MB for my detailed review)

By the way, I own a G3, and cannot tell meaningful difference in speed among Simple Tech, Viking, and the Lexar 12X I just received.

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.

How much difference will it really make? Well, in my case, not a lot, probably. The main thing I use the CF card for is for storing Ogg files (like MP3, but different); some back-of-the-envelope calculations from published battery life tests suggest that, even with the backlight off, a Zaurus playing Ogg is drawing 791 milliamps. Cutting 25 mA off of that makes very little difference: 148 minutes instead of 144. But, still, 4 minutes is 4 minutes; if that last bit of power makes the difference between getting my next calendar alarm and not, it's worth it.

Plus, if you're talking about a device with smaller power requirements--say, an MP3 player--then saving 25 mA could make a big difference. And, for an MP3 player, you'll never notice the difference in speed, since even a 1x card is far faster than you need to keep up with the bitrate of any MP3 file.

1. Canon sells Simpleteck Compact Flash Card but not other brands.

2. Digital Photography Review used SimpleTech CF in its evaluation of the Canon S45.

3. a "Simpletech 256 MB Compact Flash Card with Reader" price is good at Amazon (This is no longer true).

With the other card Sandisk 64 MB, I never had this problem.

I have never had a problem with CompactFlash before, and of the half dozen manufacturers I have, including Lexar, Sandisk, Nikon-branded, Fuji-branded and some Brand-x I picked up at Frys, all of them work in my S2Pro, whereas only one of the SimpleTech cards will.

Better safe than sorry!

Be prepared for a very long time to transfer files directly to the CF card on the Pocket PC (either USB or Serial connection). But this is not the fault of this card, but due to the poor communications speed between ActiveSync on your desktop and the PocketPC. Once you have the data on the card and in your PocketPC, it performs just as good as any other card.

I strongly suggest getting an extra USB CompactFlash reader/writer along with the card, then the transfer speeds are great. I see no difference in transfer speeds between this CF card and a 128MB MR.Flash CF or a 16MB Lexar (called high-speed) CF card.

So, why 4 stars? I get really disappointed when a company fails basic computer math. In computers, 1 KB equals 1024 bytes, but SimpleTech decided to redefine 1 KB as 1000 bytes. The result? The TRUE capacity of this CF card is 244 MB as reported by both Windows and the PocketPC. That's 12MB or 5% less than advertised!

oramos1973

Check the compatibility chart at minoltausa.com before you buy!

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.

======================================================

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.

I'm hoping that this is not a Terrible Thing, since I don't often take many pictures one right after the other, and the camera DOES have a memory buffer. But instinctively I wish I had sprung for the extra [$] and gotten a faster card.

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

Take more pictures