When you want to buy a microSD card, one of the first things that you'll notice is the number that is imprinted on it. That's what we call a micro SD card class. What you'll also notice, is that the higher the class, the higher the price.But, what do these numbers mean anyway? What's the difference between classes? Do they make a difference for us? Should we care? Are they worth the extra money? Why? Well, let's find out - shall we?
What's the difference between one micro SD card class and another?
The number that's imprinted on a micro sd card indicates its class. We use these different classes to categorize our cards in minimum write speeds in megabytes per second. That indicates how fast an SD card can write data in the worst case scenario.Knowing how fast a memory card can write data is very important because:- You get a better idea on how good or bad of a value you're about to get
- Some people need to get specific write speeds depending on how they are going to use their storage - more on that later
- The regular class
- UHS
Regular micro SD card classes
When it comes to regular classes, here's what we got:That's class 2, 4, 6, and 10. As you've probably noticed on the right side of the board, a higher micro SD card class allows you to capture videos in a higher resolution and/or framerate.Class 2 cards have a minimum write speed of 2 MB/s and allow you to capture SD videos; aka 360/480p, class 4 cards are at 4 MB/s and are capable of 720p or even 1080p recording, same thing for class 6 except its capable of 6 MB/s, and then there's class 10 which allows you to easily capture FULL HD videos at 10 MB/s.Do keep in mind that this is the minimum sequential writing speed. So, these cards can obviously write at higher speeds but these numbers refer only to how low they'll get. More on why this is important later on.UHS micro sd card classes
When it comes to UHS (Ultra High Speed), we only got two classes:- UHS-1
- UHS-3