MicroSD Memory cards have been on the market for a number of years now and the more people use their phone for picture taking and music playing the more people need larger storage. Additionally, when first introduced the 2GB cards sold for close to $100 – but now they are available for as low as $3.95!! 

Some background: MicroSD is a format for removable flash memory cards. SD is an abbreviation of Secure Digital. The cards are commonly used in cellular phones, as well as in some newer handheld GPS devices, portable media players, digital audio players, etc. It is the smallest memory card available commercially and generally an adapter is included which allow a microSD card to be used in devices intended for standard SD, miniSD, Memory Stick Duo and even USB cards. MicroSD card readers are available to transfer pictures to your computer at high speeds.

So which card is best for you? Well, let’s work backwards. One megabyte (Mb) is equal to 1,024Kb of data. One gigabyte (Gb) equals 1,024Mb of data. So a 1GB MicroSD card hold over 1,00 MBs. Mavens in the music industry say that a minutes worth of music is around 1MB. Hence an average song of 4 minutes will be around 4MB. So a 1GB card will hold over 250 songs!

That being said, you will probably also have some photos stored on your phone too. You can adjust the settings on your phone as to how much memory will be used per picture (depending on the resolution you use to take the picture) but on an average phone you are looking at around 200kb per pic, or 5 pictures in 1MB. So 1GB of memory can store 5,000 pictures! Obviously video though will take up a lot more room than that.

So now that prices of memory cards are at an all time low, it pays to invest in a larger size card like 4GB or above so that you never run out of room.Why not spoil yourself an go all out with an 8GB or 16GB card and start shooting mini-movies with your cellphone!!