Products at a Glance
How we picked
We’ve looked at memory cards from reputable manufacturers, known for producing reliable Micro SD cards. All the options here include extensive manufacturer warranties.
We’ve also tried to find a balance between, speed, capacity, and price, with a selection of cards to suit various different needs.
How we tested
We’ve compared how the different cards available match up against each other in terms of capacity, speed, and price, and picked out a selection of cards that stand above the rest.
Product Reviews
- Great speeds
- Excellent price
- Robust warranty included
- Not the largest capacity
- Cheaper cards are available
- Speed might be overkill for some uses
This is the sweet spot for a balance between speed, capacity, and value at today’s prices. This is a reasonably large capacity memory card, with speeds rated at 550MB/s for reading and 520MB/s for writing.
For many uses, like photo collections, a music library, or a decent collection of HD video, this will be more than enough, and the fast read and write speeds won’t leave you hanging around waiting for transfers to complete.
Samsung offers a 10-year warranty for standard usage on this memory card.
- Great value
- Decent speeds for the price
- Lifetime warranty
- Modest capacity
- Speeds could be better
- Worth spending a bit more for a better card
If you don’t need a massive amount of expanded storage, this card will be great for just adding a decent amount of extra storage. If you’re using this in a phone with limited internal storage capacity, or a laptop with a smaller SSD, this will be an extremely useful option to expand your storage capacity by a decent amount.
This is a great budget level memory card, with read speeds of up to /s, and write speeds of up to 90MB/s, decent enough for most uses except for tasks demanding high bandwidth like HD video recording. It also includes a lifetime warranty, for ultimate peace of mind.
- Extreme high capacity
- Decent speeds
- Good value in terms of dollar per gigabytes
- Expensive
- Speed could be more impressive
- Smaller card would suit many users
This is a beast of a memory card, leaving behind the gigabytes and moving on up into the territory of the terabytes. Here you get one entire terabyte, bigger than many laptops internal storage, that can store huge amounts of data. This will be great for anyone looking for a memory card that they can fill with lots of HD videos, someone looking for a card to extend the storage of a laptop, or anyone with a massive collection of high bitrate digital audio.
This volume of storage will be overkill for many users, but for a power user looking to carry huge amounts of data in the palm of their hands, this is a great choice.
The read speed here is up to 160MB/s, and write speed is up to 90MB/s. Not recommended for anyone needing very fast transfer rates, this card is optimized for size above speed.
- Budget-friendly price
- Sensible choice for modest storage needs
- 10 year warranty
- Low capacity
- Slowest card in the lineup
- You can pay a little more for a much better memory card
This is a basic entry-level card, you can get them slightly cheaper, but it’s not much of a saving, so this is probably the cheapest option to seriously consider.
The 64GB storage makes it good decent for use in any kind of device with very limited internal storage. This would be plenty of use in a camera simply taking photos, or keeping a modest collection of music and videos on.
Despite the budget price, it’s still decently quick, with read speeds of up to 100MB/s, and write speeds of up to 70MB/s, but it is the slowest card in our lineup. It still comes with a 10-year warranty.
Things to consider
You may see memory cards under the “Samsung EVO Plus” banner, and “Samsung EVO Select” banner. These cards are identical in terms of performance and are produced in the same factories under the same specification, the difference between the two cards is simply a matter of branding, where “Samsung EVO Select” cards are sold exclusively by Amazon.
How do read/write speeds affect usage?
The read speed is the rate at which data can be read from your memory card, and the write speed is the rate at which data can be written to your memory card.
Certain bandwidth-demanding tasks can only be performed with cards fast enough to keep up. Tasks like recording real-time HD video, or playing games in-game systems can require faster speeds. It’s best to consult with the manufacturer guidelines for any device you’re intending to use a MicroSD card with to check it’s up to the task.
In general use, file transfers to and from the memory card will always benefit from higher speeds, even if slower cards would be supported too.
What are the limits on the warranty on these cards?
Our Verdict
We went with the Samsung 256GB EVO Select MicroSDXC as our top pick because it’s a great all-round card that offers plenty of storage capacity for the majority of uses, has really impressive read and write speeds, and comes in at a very reasonable price. It’s the obvious choice for anyone after a MicroSD who is just after a good deal on a card with good performance.