PNY PRO Elite 1TB microSDXC Memory Card Review

How Much Does it Cost?

Well, it’s fair to say that this is an expensive product. It feels all the more expensive when you consider it’s incredibly tiny, it literally looks and feels like you’re not getting a lot for your investment. However, it’s so expensive because it’s so small, and packing this level of storage and performance into such a small form factor is certainly impressive. There are more affordable solutions on the market, but when it comes to rival products that offer similar levels of storage or performance, the PNY is competitively priced. You can find it on Amazon for around £181.99, and smaller capacities are also available; 512GB £83.99, 256GB £38.99, 128GB £22.49 and the 64GB is £10.99.

Overview

It’s important that we all take our storage seriously these days. We all rely on digital devices daily, from our desktop computers to our phones. Having storage that won’t let you down is important to protect your data, that’s for sure. However, performance may not be essential to everyone, but if you are running a high resolution and/or frame rate camera on something like a drone or a DLSR, the last thing you need is storage that can’t keep up with the read/write speeds required.

This is easily one of the fastest MicroSD cards on the market today, which is obviously reflected in the price. However, it’s also complete overkill for most users. If you just need to expand your phone storage or play games on your Nintendo Switch, one of PNYs less high-end MicroSD cards will do the job just fine, and save you a lot of money too. Of course, if money isn’t an issue for you, the extra performance this drive delivers will speed up the loading time of games. It’s also rated to deliver A2 App performance on mobile devices, meaning you get great performance for apps that are installed directly on the MicroSD card rather than your phones internal storage.

The Class 10 U3 and V30 ratings are important though, and likely why the card is so expensive. Being rated to shoot 4K video is one thing, but this card is proven to shoot a continuous 4K video (full cinematic 4096×3072 format), at 60 and 120 FPS. That’s quite a demanding workload for any type of storage! Furthermore, the U3 rating is the rating for high-resolution photography, and those write speeds will mean you can go burst-mode crazy and the card should not miss a beat.

Should I Buy One?

Are you shooting ultra-high-resolution photography and video for extended periods, and are you likely to chew through 1TB of storage in a single shoot? Then this is the card for you, without a doubt, it’s exactly what you need. From high-performance DSLRs to 4K drone footage, it’s ideal. You could use it on your Nintendo Switch, mobile phone, tablet or similar devices too, especially if app loading times and file transfer speeds are a priority for you. Of course, the 1TB may be total overkill for those applications, but you still get the same high-speed performance on the lower capacity drives, which may be better suited to your needs, and your budget.