GearBits

Avoid This Secure Digital Card!

I recently bought a 256 MB Secure Digital card, manufactured by Smart Modular Technologies (a Solectron company), from eCost.com to use in my MP3 player. The image on the left shows how the card was portrayed at eCost.com when I purchased it on July 9th (and still is as of this blog entry).

However, if you look at the images to the right, you'll see that the card I actually received looks quite different.

Notice the differences between the left and right images:
(A) the color is different (no big deal there),
(B) there is no official "SD" logo anywhere on the card (now I'm starting to get suspicious), and
(C) there is no "Lock" switch on the card (isn't that a necessary component of the Secure Digital card specification??).
It also feels different, as if it were made out of circuit board material (whereas normal SD cards have a thin plastic coating).

Well, thinking that different may not necessarily mean worse, I pop the card into my MP3 player. I immediately get a card reading error, which I can't get out of to format the card. OK, I'll just format the card in my USB flash reader. No sweat. I load a couple of MP3 files on it for good measure. I then pop it back into the MP3 player -- no dice...same error.

OK, thinking it was a file system issue, I attempted to format the card using my Kyocera 7135, a Palm OS device with an SD slot. Upon inserting the card into the 7135, it locks up. I reset the device with the card still in the slot (just to see what would happen), and the dang thing hard resets! I remove the SD card, stick my old SanDisk card back in and restore from backup (thank you Backupman).

Then, just to add insult to injury, I download the rebate form from eCost.com to see how I might go about getting my $25 rebate from Smart (not that I'm actually considering keeping it, mind you). Well, ironically enough, the third (of 3) items that the rebate requires is "the original UPC label." Well, eCost didn't even include one of those in the package -- just the card (in a small clear container) and my invoice. Unbelievable.

So, this card is going back tomorrow, and, given all the ridiculous problems associated with this thing, I'm gonna try to get eCost to pay for return shipping. We'll see how that goes...I'm not holding my breath...