Kingston 8GB microSDHC Mobility Kit Review


The Miniscule USB Adapter

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In the past, you had to use the SD card adapter and then place the combined pair into a regular card reader if you wanted to use a microSD card with your laptop or desktop. This is no longer the case.

Kingston certainly isn’t unique for offering a dedicated microSD-to-USB adapter, but this design is quite nice. The card reader is protected in a plastic sleeve when not in use and you tug it into place by pulling on the provided string. It is unfortunate though, how the USB connector is always exposed like that.

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With the tiny flash memory stashed on the microSDHC card and this small card reader, you effectively get a remarkably small USB flash drive. The performance won’t be quite as speedy as a better thumb drive, but it’s not a slouch either. The convenience factor is certainly there.

Performance Benchmarks

So, all said, how does this card kit perform? Inserting the Kingston 8GB microSDHC card into the USB adapter, I got the following results from HD Tune 2.54.

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The sustained data transfer rate stayed in the 18MB/sec range throughout the benchmark test, offering a consistent and reasonably speedy read speed. The access time was clocked in at 0.9ms with a burst rate of 14.5MB/sec.

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