All We Don't Want For X-Mas 7

DON'T WANT: A Useless Memory Card
Generic 1 GB SD Card, $13
Now that you can find memory cards behind the counter at any drug store for a fistful of dollars, avoid the reasonable temptation to just grab whichever one is closest or cheapest and assume it will suffice. Annoying (and typical) as it is, you have to make sure that it's appropriate for whatever device it'll be used with... or it may end up being un-used, especially in the case with owners of HD-capable cameras, camcorders, DSLR cameras, and similar high-performance items.


DO WANT:
SanDisk Extreme III 8GB SDHC Card, $80
This may not be the exact model you'll need, but it's a good example of the type you'd want for newer high-performance devices: It's got plenty of storage for most uses and as an Extreme III card it reads and writes at up to 30MB/sec -- what you'll need for burst shooting modes and high resolution capture, as well as getting that data on to a computer lickety-split. Granted SDHC devices are backwards-compatible with SD cards, but that won't be much comfort when you're losing shots due to a slow card.

Tags: hgg, SanDisk Extreme III 8GB SDHC Card, SandiskExtremeIii8gbSdhcCard, sd card, SdCard