Kingston has recently introduced the new Gold series microSD cards to replace their older standard non-Gold series UHS-I U3 microSD memory cards. It has high read/write performance which allows you to shoot 4K videos up to 30fps and 1080p videos up to 120fps. Therefore, it is perfect for content creators who are looking for a good memory card for action cameras and drones.
Read on to find out more.
Product Highlights:
- Capacity: 16GB | 32GB | 64GB
- Class: microSDXC UHS-I Class 3
- Read: 90MB/s
- Write: 45MB/s
- Warranty: Lifetime
Packaging
The Kingston Gold microSDXC UHS-I Class 3 comes in a typical cardboard envelope packaging.
Closer Look
The microSD card comes with a microSD to SD adapter in case if you want to use it in other devices that accept the standard SD card. Take note that the 64GB variant comes preformatted in exFAT file system. It allows files larger than 4GB to be stored on the card compared to the older FAT32.
Synthetic Benchmark
We took the card for a few rounds of quick spin on some synthetic benchmark tools - CrystalDiskMark on Windows and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on Mac OS.
For some unknown reason, CrystalDiskMark is showing a slower write speed than what Kingston promises. Now, don't jump the gun because we are not experiencing the slow down when using it in real life. More onto that later.
On Mac OS, the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test clearly shows that the write speed is a lot more than just 18 MB/s.
Real World Usage
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| Read speed |
Moving onto the actual real-life usage, we are actually getting the speed as promised.
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| Write speed |
The write speed even goes slightly further beyond what has been presented in the datasheet of 45MB/s.
Final Thoughts
Apart from the weird CrystalDiskMark benchmark result, the real-life result has been very positive especially the read/write speed meets and exceeds our expectation. Unless you're getting the latest GoPro HERO6 that capable of shooting 4K60 and 1080p240, otherwise, for 45MB/s write speed, it is a great choice to start for 4K videos at 30fps and 1080p videos at 120fps.Official selling price in Malaysia has not been decided at the time of writing of this review. So we can't say anything regarding whether the pricing is great or too expensive.
Pros
- Meeting the expected performance - 90MB/s Read; 45MB/s Write
- Lifetime warranty
Cons
- 45MB/s write speed is a bit slow for UHS-I Class 3 (U3) card
