Let's talk sd cards.. bang for buck

crabu2

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I was reading a thread about a $16 dash cam's video quality and there was a post about a 32gb sd card for $4.50 on ebay. I was like WOW and wonder how cheap one could get a 256gb card. I was shocked that there were options on ebay for under $15. How many of these are legit?

My question is, do you use one of these low cost cards? How do they perform? By chance, have you bought one that was less than advertised? Did something like the below happen?

 
The cheap ones are fake, don't waste your money

What do you feel is the price point where they're fake?

I was really surprised at how many cheap cards were on ebay, especially since ebay has their "eBay Money Back Guarantee".
 
It's a numbers game, majority of people that buy fake cards put them in mobile phones and don't find out they're fake until it's too late to do anything about it so the sellers get away with majority of the sales, for the ones they need to refund they still end up in front

Prices are ever changing so you can't put a figure on it that's fixed, just need to be aware of market price, memory cards have very small margins so it's easy to spot the fakes
 
You do not want to go cheap on the memory card, and you do not want to send your money to some overseas guy.
I buy mine in local stores, and if i go online i most often use a UK or German Amazon, which have served me well with the cards i have had die on me, not least since i have been fairly unlucky with expensive high end U3 cards.
Actually you also don't want to go cheap on the dashcam itself, there are good cameras at reasonable prices, but you do not want to pull the trigger on some weird brand cheap camera from the internet.
 
Prices are ever changing so you can't put a figure on it that's fixed, just need to be aware of market price, memory cards have very small margins so it's easy to spot the fakes
Being the correct price on ebay does not mean that they are real, just means that the fakers make more profit!

Always test them with h2testw.exe as soon as you receive them, and if they are fake use the ebay returns procedure, you will almost certainly get a hassle free return with all your money back since they always want to carry trading and maintain their 100.0% satisfaction score!

The majority of traders on ebay are very good, but there are a lot of traders on ebay so quite a lot of bad ones even though most are good!
 
Cams are write-intensive which only the better (best?) cards can handle. Cheap cards will either fail to record the data without corruption or soon fail from over-work. And fakes abound with no certain way of knowing what you'll get until it's in your hands and proven by verification and testing. There are some safer buying strategies such as buying recommended cards "fulfilled by Amazon" or through buying directly through a manufacturer's own store. Even then you might end up with a 'dud' card once in awhile. So it's as much the seller and how good their support is as it is the cards themselves.

You might get by with a cheaper cam which might perform decently with a good card but really the card is the key to it all with every cam. There's no point in using less than the best cards whatever their cost unless you see failure as a viable option which defeats the purpose of having a dashcam in the first place. Good cards are cheap enough so just use only them and bypass the problems and regrets which come with any other choice you have.

Phil
 
What do you guys consider cheap enough?

In the last 4 or 5 years, I've always purchased my SD cards from Amazon. Last time was a 64gb card. If I remember correctly, I paid around $25 for it. That was about 18 months ago. All the cards I've purchased from them, I've never had a problem.

When I saw that post for a 32gb card at under $5, eyes popped.. I was like, how can that be real? When I checked pricing on 256gb cards and they're under $20... WOW?

How can they sell any 256gb card at under $20? They can't all be fake.. There's too many reviews. How many of you have actually gotten a fake card?
 
How can they sell any 256gb card at under $20? They can't all be fake.. There's too many reviews. How many of you have actually gotten a fake card?

the cost price on a 256GB card is way higher than that right now, at that price it can only be fake, you can't make a business out of selling things at a massive loss
 
When you can get Samsung Pro Endurance 128gb cards for $45 USD off amazon (legit cards) I think by far that’s a huge bang for buck.

You get a good format size and a card that is meant for dash cams.
 
I always look at writing speed. Bigger cards with better writing are going to cost more. I'm talking 100x speed. That is way I do it.
 
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