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Viking CF256M 256 MB CompactFlash Card

Viking CF256M 256 MB CompactFlash Card

List Price: $74.99
Your Price: $25.17
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: More memory than I know what to do with.
Review: I popped this into my Canon S100 and with the default resolution, got a reading of 1478 shots available! That's an incredible amt of space and for someone heading off on an extended trip, it should be quite a boon. I have been following CF costs on a dollar-per-meg basis for some time, and while the newest & largest cards have tended to carry a premium, this one does not. It is roughly fifty cents per meg, less than 1/4 of what it cost per meg only 18 months ago!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: CF Memory Card Error can be avoided!
Review: While I love the size of the card and really need that much memory for my Canon S40 (especially for my one week vacation and 250 photographs) I have to say that I lost 2 photographs... you might say that 2 out of 250 is pretty good, but if you take a photograph, frankly, you want to keep it.
When I took 16 photographs and downloaded I had no issues... but after taking 250 photographs the card started having CF Memory Errors in two places. Those errors meant that I could not download all my photographs in one go and had to download in batches. I was unable to rescue those two photographs and didn't feel like buying/using software to try and save them.
I have to admit that Viking's email tech support was very responsive and discussed formatting issues. The nice part about buying a known brand - they have a great return policy.

Right now the card is on probation - if it happens again, I'm returning it. I would probably buy another Viking card though.

Update: Since I have started formatting the card (via the camera menu option) after every trip and before I start a new batch of photographs, I haven't seen even one error. I have been on two very long trips and taken over 500 photographs. Have had mini-photo-sessions too. Formatting after I download them, seems to ensure that I have no issues with the card. Am still extremely happy with the amount of memory. Would recommend this card and brand to anyone.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: For those who have lost photos on their Viking card...
Review: This is a follow up on an earlier post where I reported my really bad experience with my Viking flash card. I mentioned in that post that I was able to recover my pictures. I don't want to pass up the opportunity to put a plug in for the company that helped me recover my photos: flashfixers.com. I got really great, personal service. I think there a lot of folks out there who advertise themselves as digital recovery experts, but if their software (which most of them are willing to sell you) can't access the card, there's nothing they can do. Flashfixers attempted to recover my photos by reading the card. When that failed, they took the time to call me and talk to me about another alternative that was new to them. They believed there was good chance the problem was the i/o part of the card. If that was the case, the photos might still be intact on the memory. The physically took the card apart, removed the memory, and then installed it in a another card with a known good i/o. It worked and some irreplacable photos were recovered. It was little pricey, but I really appreciate the personal attention.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Gotta look at this one.
Review: Wow, does it again by offering twice the capacity of my 64MB Viking card without doubling the price of it.

Moore's law, but faster.

This card works great in my iPAQ and camera. I remember thinking foolishly when I got my 64MB card that I'd never have enough stuff to fill it. Was I wrong....

This card is large enough to fit several mp3 (songs), full feature film, and some audible and e-books with ease...not to mention extra applications.

Plus, Viking offers toll-free tech support, something that not all vendors do.

A very important thing to note from the technical details: (Note: Check the maximum memory capacity of your portable device before ordering.)

Some devices, usually cameras, are limited in the amount of extra storage they can see. Don't buy more than you can use in your device. You may have to check the website or call the device vendor to clarify: some device documentation only mentions compatibility with smaller cards because these larger cards didn't exist then. My camera docs don't mention this size card, but it does work with it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Be careful
Review: Here is the story. If you order this flash you will receive a compact flash from Viking Interworks (not Viking Components as shown in picture). What is the difference you ask? The Viking Interworks flash is "new" and SLOWER! The "older" complact flash from Viking Components was good value for money ie fast compared to other compact flash for its price. The difference in speed is the way the memory is allocated in the chip (this was verified by a call to Viking tech line). Problem here is that Amazon is giving specs on the "older" model which is faster when in fact it is selling the "newer" slower model. It may not be important to all but it is to some people who don't like the lag time when taking pictures. I advised Amazon of this some time ago and they have yet to change their picture or their description of the product. I thought it was important to let people know they are not getting what they thought they were getting.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best bang for the buck
Review: Despite all the negative reviews, I was enticed by the price, rebate, and memory size (not to mention the highly rated 128MB SimpleTech card was out of stock). It's my belief that electronics are going to work in the 10 minutes you try them, or they're not ever going to work. I figured I could return the card if it truly didn't work. Besides, I thought the reviews were skewed because Viking outsells their competitors, meaning that even for a small defect rate, you'll get more negative reviews coming out of the woodwork.

Well, it worked. Plugged it into my Nikon Coolpix 2100, four seconds later showed me I had room for 503 pictures! Such an obscene amount. Plugged it into my CF card reader drive on my new PC running XP home and... it didn't work. Restarted the machine and... it worked! I started to unplug and plug it back in, and noticed it wouldn't work as the drive would disappear completely. Then I realized I'm supposed to safely "stop" the USB device through one of the tray icons before pulling out. Whoops.

About time concerns: it takes about 3 seconds to do a 1600x1200 picture, taking up about 450 to 550kb. It takes the Coolpix about 2 seconds to correctly focus and get the flash ready. Give me: Satisfaction. Flash. Give me: Good enough. Flash.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Defective product but great tech support
Review: Summary: I had a great deal of trouble with a Viking 512 MB compact flash card, Viking was very helpful in replacing it with two 256 MB cards, but now the only 256 MB card I've used thus far has corrupted data as well. I give Viking tech support manager Patrick Beard 5 stars, he was very professional. However, the product quality rates only 1 star. Average 3 stars. I did get my money back after shipping back the cards.

Details: In early December, just before a big overseas family vacation, I purchased one Viking 512 MB card, and one SimpleTech 256 card. The Viking card was the first one I used, and there were no problems for one week. Then one photo I took showed as a very small image with the caption CF CARD ERROR. I had no idea what this meant at the time and in fact the camera/card seemed to repair that image one hour later. Several days later I noticed a couple of images that were previously fine and now show CF Card ERROR. I had already saved over 300 photos on this card at this point and was concerned enough to switch to the SimpleTech card and saved 200 photos on that card for the rest of the trip.

After coming back into the US, the Viking card would not upload the images into the computer. By the way the camera is G3 and the computer is high end new Dell running XP. The only method I finally got the images into the computer was using Windows explorer. Then I realized 70 images were missing. Viking was very helpful. I shipped them the defective card, and they shipped me two 256MB cards. It took them one week, but Viking also recovered 60 of the images that were missing for me. I estimate that I lost less than 10 images all together. However helpful Viking was, the card was defective, and the whole experience probably cost me 10 hours of time. Unfortunately, one of the 256 MB card has corrupted as well.

The Simple card on the other hand, just worked. No Card ERROR, no problem in uploading into the computer, the way it should be. It has been 4 months.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great card, but bad camera
Review: I'm planning to go on a long trip in chrismas, and I wanted a memorycard that won't run out of pictures in a while. I have a 2 Megapixel Nikon Coolpix 775 (fimrware 1.4), and the 256 MB card should be more than big enough for my needs. On the viking pages the said that this card will work with my camera. I'm not sure if i agree. When I installed the card I got the message "system error, card cannot be used." I formatted the card, but still got the same message. But if i turned my lcd screen on and off, it worked anyway. The problem was that everything was running in slow motion. It takes 12-15 seconds to start the camera and all writing and reading runs approx twice as slow as with my 64Mb card. Dissapointing

Then I tried the card in my friends Canon Poweshot G1. It worked great, and he was really impressed how fast this card was compared to his old one (apacer 64mb)!

So my conclusion is that the card is great if you have the right camera. But viking shouldn't say they support a camera when you take away all the fun of taking pictures if you use their memorycard. To make my "old" camera work, I have ended up buying a 128 lexar card.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 1 year and 3000+ pics later, no problems
Review: I've popped it in & out of my camera and PCMCIA adapter many times. I even dropped it down a sidewalk grate (transformer vault, not the sewer), where it was lying in the grime for a week until it was recued by someone from the power company. I cleaned it up & it works just fine.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: So far so good!
Review: I've had this card for about two months now, and after having taken more than 200 pics with my Canon S400, I haven't had any problems. With many of the electronic devices, it's either going to work the first 30 days or its not. I'd recommend that you take as many pics as possible during the first 30 days so that if it doesn't work, you can always return it.


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