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Appeared on: Thursday, October 15, 2015
Toshiba 16GB NFC SDHC UHS-I Card


1. About the Toshiba NFC SDHC Card

Earlier this year Toshiba announced the first SDHC card with a Near Field Communication (NFC) built-in. The concept is simple enough and allows you to preview your SD card without having to put it into a PC or a digital camera. By holding an NFC-enabled Android smartphone, with the Memory Card Preview App, a preview of your pictures is visible. Additionally you see how much free space is left on your card.Tohsiba says that an iOS version of the app is also on the way.

Besides this wireless convinience, Toshiba' device is a regular SDHC card that can also operate in SD slots. It is available in 8/16 and 32GB versions, it is compatible with SDA version 4.00 and support the UHS-I interface and SD Speed Class 10 - so expect decent transfer speeds here (busspeed of up tp 104 MB/s, 10 MB/s minimum serial data).

Here are the specs:

  SD-T008NFC(6 SD-T016NFC(6 SD-T032NFC(6
Capacity 8GB 16GB 32GB
Connector Pins
9 pins
Interface
Compliant standard SD Memory Card Standard Ver.4.00
Speed Class
UHS Speed Class 1, SD Speed Class 10
DSC (Digital Still Camera)
Compatible with SDHC Memory Card
Operating System (for config.)
Windows XP/ Vista/7, MAC-PC, Android (under development), iOS (under development)
NFC- Standard
NFC Forum Type 3 Tag compliant
(ISO/IEC 18092 (NFCIP-1) )
Radio Frequency
Radio Frequency
Browser
Internet Explorer, Safari, etc
Smartphones Requirement
NFC-enabled Android Smartphones
(Android 4.0-4.4)
Wireless LAN Security
WEP, TKIP, AES (WPA, WPA2) WPA2 Default
Applicable Data Formats
All data formats (ex: .jpg, .mpg, .raw etc)
Power Supply
2.7 - 3.6V
Dimensions
32.0mm(L)x24.0mm(W)x2.1mm(T)
Weight
approx. 2 g
Operating Temperature
-25°C to +85°C (Recommended)
Storage Temperature
-40°C to +85°C (Recommended)
Operational and Storage Humidity
30 to 80%RH (no condensation)
Warranty
5-year warranty from the date of purchase

2. Operation

The cool packaging of the NFC SDHC 16GB card includes the basic information about the products, along with its speed ratings. The back side of the package lists some additional info in various languages.

 

The card itself has a typical size and fits into cameras, card readers etc A small slider lon the left side lets you lock the content of the card.

 

The basic function of the Toshiba NFC SDHC card is the Android app that can be used to see the contents stored in it. All you need to do is to hold your Android smart phone close to the card. The information that the NFC SDHC card ca display on your phone;s screen includes the given name and the storage capacity of the card, the remaining available space in the card, and the type of data that is stored inside it.

The NFC card is powered by the radio frequency field from your smartphone. It operates in the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio band at 13.56 MHz with about 14KHx bandwidth. FC supports up to 424 kbits/s.

The app will also display a maximum of 16 thumbnail pictures for you to identify the images that are stored in the card. We measured a total time of about 20 seconds from initial pairing to load the 16 thumbnails. A short "Data loading is completed" massage appeared on the phone's screen upon completion of the task.

The thumbnails have circular shapes and each one is expanded in a larger circle as they are scrolled. The most recent photos are shown first, followed by the rest. The thumbnails are ordered in scattered positions around the screen, making them look random.

In order to see a non-cropped version of each image, you should tap on its thumbnail. The 160x120 pixel JPEG images appear in 4:3 ratio and include their date info. And if you long-press a thumbnail, you can import /share it using other apps installed on your phone.

You can see more detailed card information by tapping the "i" icon on the card diagram in the center of the thumbnail view. Information includes range dates, names, a pie chart showing the card usage, the total size and number of images and other files on the card, as well as the total space used and available on the card.

We noticed that the app cannot read RAW files stored on the card.

Obviously, you can only see the pictures and not transfer them, as the specific card lacks support for Wi-Fi.

We tested the card with a Kingston Multi-Card Reader FCR-HS3 and various benchmarks (CrystalDisk Mark, ATTO Disk and HD Tach RW). The card reached the 37 MB/s sequential read speed and 12.8 MB/s sequential write speed. Using a different card reader, even one compatible with USH-II, should not make any significant difference, as the card has been designed to meet the Class 10 specification (10MB/s continuous write speed.).

 

 

 


3. Final thoughts

The Toshiba NFC card is bringing the cool and convenient feature of previewing the stored photos in it without physical contact, just by using your Android smart phone. This saves you some time as you don't have to insert the card to your camera or card reader in order to identify your photos and get a general idea of what is in the card.

The Android app is very simple and easy to use, although we would like to see more than 16 thumbnails and support for RAW images, besides obviously JPEG.

In terms of performance, Toshiba's NFC card 16GB will gibe you decent, Class-10 transfer speeds, comparable to other SDHC cards in the category.

As a concept, adding NFC connectivity to an SD card is smart, showing that Toshiba keeps adding simple but innovative features to its line of memory cards.

Prices over Amazon for the 8/16 and 32GB versions of the card are $13, $18 and $39, respectively.

 

 

 



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