Q I am looking to buy a digital camera and want to learn more about memory cards. In practical situations, what is the difference between using a regular card and a "high-speed" card?
KAREN DEJEET, MURRYSVILLE, PA.
A High-speed memory cards read and write data much faster than regular cards. In simple terms, when you take a picture, you write from the camera to the card. When you review a picture, your camera reads from the card to display the image.
High-speed memory cards are a must for digital SLRs and advanced cameras with more than 8 megapixels, which are usually designed to work best with high-speed memory.
You can use a regular-speed card with such cameras, but it will result in sluggish performance when reviewing pictures, because it takes the camera so long to read the data from the memory card. It can be frustrating when you push the button to view the next image and you sit there and wait. Regular memory might also bog down the camera when taking several pictures in quick succession, because the camera can't transfer the data to the card quickly enough.
If your camera is not designed to take advantage of high-speed memory, you won't see any speed improvements when using the camera, but there are still potential benefits. High-speed memory cards will download your pictures to your computer much faster if you use a USB 2.0 card reader. It could be the difference between waiting a few seconds vs. a few minutes to download pictures.
High-speed memory used to cost significantly more than regular memory cards, but that is no longer the case, especially if you wait for a sale. I recently bought 4-gigabyte high-speed SD cards made by Sandisk (a top brand) for $29 each, about $5 more than the regular version. Each card included a compact USB 2.0 high-speed card reader, making it an even better deal.
Given its advantages and the modest price premium, I recommend that readers purchase high-speed memory cards exclusively and pass on the regular versions.