After going hands-on with the latest PRO Plus lineup earlier this year, the brand new Samsung PRO Ultimate microSD card lineup was unveiled late last month, and it’s now time to weigh in. The new lineup enters as the brand’s fastest consumer memory cards out there, giving the best options from other storage brands a run for their money at notable price tags. We have had a chance to test out the 256GB model along with the USB card reader for a couple of weeks, and now we are ready to dish up some impressions as part of the latest Tested with 9to5Toys review.
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Hands-on with the new Samsung PRO Ultimate microSD memory cards
The Samsung PRO Ultimate microSD cards land at the top of the brand’s lineup. In the last couple of years, we have seen new generation models for its PRO Plus and PRO Endurance lineups; however, the PRO Ultimate marks a completely new tier for the brand.
Available in the usual 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities, they clock in with 200MB/s read and 130MB/s write speeds, making them the fastest in the Samsung stable. Alongside a 10-year warranty, they also deliver the Samsung six-proof protection against water, dust, wear-out, X-rays, extreme temperature, and more.
The Samsung PRO Ultimate card provides best-in-class speed within UHS-I interface that enables the quick transfer of a large number of files thanks to its fast speeds. The Samsung PRO Ultimate card is built with highly reliable and advanced V-NAND flash memory from Samsung that achieves lightning- fast speeds. The card features a new controller that improves its power efficiency and reliability. The card is perfect for people who use memory cards for recording video using cameras or drones and gamers who need to expand their handheld gaming console’s storage.
The new cards are available on their own or with the included USB 3.0 reader you see on display in this review and start from $20 Prime shipped at the time of writing.
Here’s a closer look at the specs:
- Read and write speeds up to 200/130 MB/s
- 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities
- Available with/without USB 3.0 reader
- UHS Video Speed Class 30 (V30)
- A2 performance is 4000 read IOPS, 2000 write IOPS
- Waterproof: withstand up to 72 hours in seawater
- Temperature proof: operating temperatures of -13°F to 185°F
- Wear out: up to 10,000 swipes
- X-ray Proof: up to 100mGy
- Magnetic-Proof: up to 15,000 gauss
- Drop: withstand drops up to 16.4 feet (5 meters)
- 10-year limited warranty
9to5Toys’ Take
Samsung has pushed the limits with its new PRO Ultimate lineup in terms of speed. Last time around, in our hands-on review of the last big release in the brand’s microSD lineup (the newest-generation PRO Plus models), we saw marginal speed increases compared to the previous-gen PRO Plus lineup. Those were clearly a mild generational bump in performance, but this time around, Samsung has introduced a new model family completely with the PRO Ultimate lineup.
Before they hit, SanDisk was offering the market a slightly faster option than the PRO Plus with its 190MB/s models, but the PRO Ultimate is taking things up a notch at up to 200MB/s. But that’s just on the read side of things.
It is admittedly a little bit disappointing that its brand-new flagship microSD cards write at the same speed as the PRO Plus lineup. While there’s just about always a difference in terms of up and down speeds on just about all storage mediums, there’s something about having the same write speeds on what should be the less-premium model that feels a touch underwhelming.
However, pricing isn’t all that much more, and the PRO Ultimate lineup can read 20MB/s faster and remains on par or faster than most of the big brand options out there. It just would have been nice to see a complete performance upgrade across the board here instead of the somewhat mild incremental bumps we have been seeing the last couple of years or more.
I am happy to report the performance is not just nominal. They do indeed run faster than the PRO Plus model I have here in the office, as per my testing with an OWC 11-port Thunderbolt 4 hub and a MacBook Pro, albeit not by all that much.
In the end, the Samsung PRO Ultimate lineup of microSD cards is a solid choice if you ask me. It does indeed deliver flagship performance, even if we all wished Samsung had pushed the limited a bit more here, and it has a wide compatibility with a range of different applications and devices. Much like previous models, deals are plentiful, and there’s ample opportunity to score one or more at well below the asking prices (we have already featured price drops on these relatively new releases) via the official Amazon listings. Considering how popular Samsung’s cards have been around here and the fact that you can and will be able to score these newer, faster models at almost the same price as the PRO Plus variants on a relatively regular basis, it’s hard not to recommend them over just about anything else you’ll find out there.
Buy the new Samsung PRO Ultimate microSD cards
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