Holiday Gift Suggestions: the Sandisk 16GB microSDHC for the Greedy Minimalist

Posted on 10 November 2008, at 7:48 am, by Judie Lipsett

At the moment, there aren’t many geeky things more decadent than being able to say that you have got a SanDisk 16GB microSD card. This doo-dad is the size of a woman’s fingernail, and it has as much memory as a 3G iPhone…amazing. Popping this minuscule card into your mobile phone’s card slot can turn your phone or PDA into a multimedia powerhouse!

photo by Mitchell

Let’s break it down for a moment, shall we? One megabyte (MB) is equal to 1,048,576 bytes or 1024 kilobytes (KB). One gigabyte (1GB) is equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes, or 1,048,576KB, or 1024MB. Sixteen gigabytes (16GB) equals 17,179,869,184 bytes, 16,777,216KB, or 16,384MB – all in your mobile phone or PDA…have I blown your mind yet?

Now let’s try this…the average MP3 file is somewhere in the neighborhood of, oh let’s say 5 to 6MB. That means you could store approximately 3250 songs – give or take a few hundred. If there are an average of 10 songs per album, then you could put roughly 325 CDs on that card. Now think about how much space those 325 CDs would occupy. How about eBooks? If the average eReader book is 400 – 500KB, then you could store something in the neighborhood of 37,200 books. Now imagine the shelf space that library would occupy. Or how about movies? If the average PDA formatted movie weighs in around 600MB, then you would be able to carry around 27 of them…all in a little piece of plastic that measures roughly 1/2 the size of a postage stamp. It’s amazing, isn’t it?!

photo courtesy of SanDisk

In his review, Mitchell tried the 16GB microSDHC in his Nokia N95, E71, E90, E51, and HTC Touch Pro; the 16GB microSD should work with any mobile phone or PDA that accepts 4 or 8GB SDHC cards, which would include the new T-Mobile G1. If you are unsure whether your mobile phone or PDA can handle this beast of a card, then you can try one of two things: use the SanDisk Memory Selector (if your device will take an 8GB microSDHC, then it will most likely take a 16GB), or check for SDHC label on your device’s packaging.

If you need suggestions on how to fill your 16GB memory card, or to learn more about the benefits of using memory in your mobile phone’s slot, be sure to check out Wake Up Your Phone.

With a retail price of $99.99 (and you can find them for less!) the 16GB microSDHC would be a great gift for your favorite geek…or for yourself!