Sony 1 GB Memory Stick PRO Duo Media (MSX-M1GS)

Manufacturer:	Sony
List price:	~~$124.99~~
Our price:	$94.99 that is 24% off!

Sony 1 GB Memory Stick PRO Duo Media (MSX-M1GS)

Average rating: Stars

Perfect for the PSP

If you have the PSP and a little extra cash, it's pretty much mandatory that you get a Memory Stick Duo card. The 32MB that comes in the PSP Value Pack is just a joke -- unless you plan to use the PSP strictly for gaming only, in which case you don't need to buy a larger-capacity memory card.

(I suspect Sony includes a small Memory Stick Duo card in the Value Pack to discourage people from copying movies to the PSP. Just my wild guess.)

If, however, you want to take full advantage of the PSP multimedia experience, a larger-capacity Memory Stick Duo is just a must. Consider yourself lucky, for just six months ago a 1GB Memory Stick Duo (MSD for short) would have made you $300-$400 poorer. Kudos to Sony for bringing the price down to something we mere mortals can afford. But curses to Sony for not using an industry standard format like Secure Digital.

Anyway, you have pretty much two choices when it comes to 1GB MSD cards. Either a Sony, or a Sandisk. Lexar (another company) is supposed to be selling it, too, but I haven't seen theirs in the retail channel, so the choice comes down to either Sony or Sandisk.

As I mentioned many times in my previous reviews, I still have lingering doubts about Sandisk's quality control, as in the past I had no less than two Sandisk flash memory cards fail on me when I needed reliability the most (i.e., a "Kodak moment" for my digital camera). The price difference between a Sony 1GB MSD adn a Sandisk seems pretty small. BTW, if you see a 1GB MSD for over $150 in a store, you'd be overpaying, so come back to Amazon and get it here.

The popularity of the PSP does make both the Sony and the Sandisk 1GB MSD cards hard to find, so maybe you just want to grab whichever one that's in stock. I myself am willing to pay a bit extra for Sony's reliability, but other people have had luck with Sandisk MSD's, so don't let my experience discourage you from getting a Sandisk. It's just that with the Sony memory card, you're unlikely to have any problems, assuming you don't bite or let your dog nibble on the card.

1GB is a lot of memory. Most PSP games use 600KB-800KB for game save data. MP3 tunes encoded at the most common 128kbps bit rate runs about 1MB/minute, so a 4-minute song will occupy 4MB. Video files are harder to summarize since there are so many different encoding bitrates and options (e.g., 15fps or 30fps, mono or stereo or surround sound). I encode at 384kbps/15fps/mono, and one hour of video takes about 150MB. If you want to encode at the more fluid 512kbps/30fps/stereo, expect about 300MB per hour. In short, you should have no trouble fitting more than one full-length movies on this. Feel free to e-mail me at gadgester @t hotmail if you have any questions.

Because this MSD card is also "MagicGate-compatible", meaning it supports Sony's digital rights management technology, you can use it in Sony's digital audio players that take Memory Stick Duo or the full-sized Memory Stick. An adapter is included in the package so if you have Sony gear that only takes the original, full-sized Memory Stick (e.g., most Sony miniDV camcorders and digital cameras), you can stick the smaller Memory Stick Duo into the adapter and then insert the adapter into the gizmo.

Sony 1 GB Memory Stick PRO Duo Media (MSX-M1GS) - Sony

Best Buys Electronics