What SD card should I get for my LG D-415 phone?

[Gregg Bell]

This is my first smart phone so I know very little about SD cards. 32GB would be plenty space for me. Just as long as it will fit and be reasonably priced. I've had luck with Sandisk usb flash drives, so Sandisk might be good. Any suggestions? Thanks. Oh, and what's the "class" thing about? eg. class 10

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

This is my first smart phone so I know very little about SD cards. 32GB would be plenty space for me. Just as long as it will fit and be reasonably priced. I've had luck with Sandisk usb flash drives, so Sandisk might be good. Any suggestions? Thanks. Oh, and what's the "class" thing about? eg. class 10

First thing you want to do is find the maximum size card your phone can handle. Sometimes you can use a larger card than they say but often you can't and you won't know it till you try to put too much on it. Sometimes the card just doesn't get detected if it's capacity is greater than the phone can handle.

If you just want to have room for stuff you're doing, such as books and audiobooks and maybe a few videos 32 gig is plenty. If you like to have a LOT of books, videos, pictures, audiobooks, etc on board you might be happier with a larger card. These days 64 gig cards cost so little more than 32 gig cards that I'd get 64 gig just in case you find you need it, assuming your phone can handle it. Most can.

As for the brand, Sandisk is extremely reliable. They were the first company to sell flash memory cards, or PCMCIA, which was a standard based on their design. They're now owned by Western Digital, another company known for very reliable products. Sandisk is always my first choice.

If the price is better on a card made by Samsung or SP or Kingston or Transcend or Verbatim I'll get one of those. There are a couple of other reliable brands whose names I can't think of off the top of my head. The one thing you don't want to do is get a brand you don't know is good. There are many, many ripoff micro SD cards even on Amazon. It's a big problem. Stick with the known brands.

Class is about speed. If all you're doing is storing books and stuff on it class isn't that important. Transferring a lot of stuff to a card with a lower class will take a little longer but you probably won't do that a lot. Transferring a book to a slower card won't make a noticeable difference.

If you're taking pictures and they're being automatically saved to the card then you might want a faster card. There are a few other situations that also might make you want a faster one.

Class 10 is pretty fast. Class 4 is slower. These days there isn't a lot of price difference if the card is as small as 32 gig, but there'll be some difference. If you're taking lots of pictures directly to the card you might want a UHS II card. UHS I is the same speed as class 10.

For most people most of the time it doesn't matter a lot what card you get as long as it has enough room for you and it doesn't exceed the phone's capability.

Barry

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

This is my first smart phone so I know very little about SD cards. 32GB would be plenty space for me. Just as long as it will fit and be reasonably priced. I've had luck with Sandisk usb flash drives, so Sandisk might be good. Any suggestions? Thanks. Oh, and what's the "class" thing about? eg. class 10

According to the specs at the LG web site, your phone can take a 32GB microSD card or microSDHC, but no higher capacity.

The "class" think is about how fact the card can be read or written. It's not worth getting one less than a class 10.

This sandisk one should do you. Only $7.76.

[franzli]

Originally Posted by barryem

First thing you want to do is find the maximum size card your phone can handle. Sometimes you can use a larger card than they say but often you can't and you won't know it till you try to put too much on it. Sometimes the card just doesn't get detected if it's capacity is greater than the phone can handle.



If you just want to have room for stuff you're doing, such as books and audiobooks and maybe a few videos 32 gig is plenty. If you like to have a LOT of books, videos, pictures, audiobooks, etc on board you might be happier with a larger card. These days 64 gig cards cost so little more than 32 gig cards that I'd get 64 gig just in case you find you need it, assuming your phone can handle it. Most can.



As for the brand, Sandisk is extremely reliable. They were the first company to sell flash memory cards, or PCMCIA, which was a standard based on their design. They're now owned by Western Digital, another company known for very reliable products. Sandisk is always my first choice.



If the price is better on a card made by Samsung or SP or Kingston or Transcend or Verbatim I'll get one of those. There are a couple of other reliable brands whose names I can't think of off the top of my head. The one thing you don't want to do is get a brand you don't know is good. There are many, many ripoff micro SD cards even on Amazon. It's a big problem. Stick with the known brands.



Class is about speed. If all you're doing is storing books and stuff on it class isn't that important. Transferring a lot of stuff to a card with a lower class will take a little longer but you probably won't do that a lot. Transferring a book to a slower card won't make a noticeable difference.



If you're taking pictures and they're being automatically saved to the card then you might want a faster card. There are a few other situations that also might make you want a faster one.



Class 10 is pretty fast. Class 4 is slower. These days there isn't a lot of price difference if the card is as small as 32 gig, but there'll be some difference. If you're taking lots of pictures directly to the card you might want a UHS II card. UHS I is the same speed as class 10.



For most people most of the time it doesn't matter a lot what card you get as long as it has enough room for you and it doesn't exceed the phone's capability.



Barry

One thing to keep in mind is that in order to make use of the uhs-ii speeds your device needs to be compatible. So if it's not, it will not be worth spending the extra money.

[franzli]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

According to the specs at the LG web site, your phone can take a 32GB microSD card or microSDHC, but no higher capacity.

The "class" think is about how fact the card can be read or written. It's not worth getting one less than a class 10.

This sandisk one should do you. Only $7.76.

I've actually never had a case yet of a device supposedly specified for 32gb cards rejecting my 128gb cards. Of course, that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen, I've just haven't found a single example of that actually happening yet. Normally, at most you might have to format the card in FAT32.

[barryem]

I formatted 64 gig cards to fat 32 and used them in some tablets a few years ago, back when 64 gig cards were as big as you could buy. I'd done this on 3 or 4 tablets. I filled them all with videos, mostly old TV shows, and started watching.

All was well for a while and then one of the cards was corrupted, I have no idea how. These cards stayed in the tablet and when I ejected the tablets from the laptop I always did it properly. The card was not only corrupted, it wouldn't reformat, either as 32 or 64 gig. I used a format tool from, I think, Panasonic, to do this. It was reputed to be the best way to do this in those days.

A few months later the same thing happened to another card. I replaced both of these with new cards also formatted to be used as 64gb. Recently another of those went bad, although it's been a few years now so that's not so bad.

I think all in all I used 6 64gb cards and of those 3 went bad. The rest are still working fine.

So my guess, and it's only that, is that formatting them to be used in devices that aren't designed for them does work but isn't fully reliable. In my case I'm not sorry I did it. It was useful to me even though I had some problems. Other people might have different ideas about that.

Barry

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by barryem

First thing you want to do is find the maximum size card your phone can handle. Sometimes you can use a larger card than they say but often you can't and you won't know it till you try to put too much on it. Sometimes the card just doesn't get detected if it's capacity is greater than the phone can handle.

If you just want to have room for stuff you're doing, such as books and audiobooks and maybe a few videos 32 gig is plenty. If you like to have a LOT of books, videos, pictures, audiobooks, etc on board you might be happier with a larger card. These days 64 gig cards cost so little more than 32 gig cards that I'd get 64 gig just in case you find you need it, assuming your phone can handle it. Most can.

As for the brand, Sandisk is extremely reliable. They were the first company to sell flash memory cards, or PCMCIA, which was a standard based on their design. They're now owned by Western Digital, another company known for very reliable products. Sandisk is always my first choice.

If the price is better on a card made by Samsung or SP or Kingston or Transcend or Verbatim I'll get one of those. There are a couple of other reliable brands whose names I can't think of off the top of my head. The one thing you don't want to do is get a brand you don't know is good. There are many, many ripoff micro SD cards even on Amazon. It's a big problem. Stick with the known brands.

Class is about speed. If all you're doing is storing books and stuff on it class isn't that important. Transferring a lot of stuff to a card with a lower class will take a little longer but you probably won't do that a lot. Transferring a book to a slower card won't make a noticeable difference.

If you're taking pictures and they're being automatically saved to the card then you might want a faster card. There are a few other situations that also might make you want a faster one.

Class 10 is pretty fast. Class 4 is slower. These days there isn't a lot of price difference if the card is as small as 32 gig, but there'll be some difference. If you're taking lots of pictures directly to the card you might want a UHS II card. UHS I is the same speed as class 10.

For most people most of the time it doesn't matter a lot what card you get as long as it has enough room for you and it doesn't exceed the phone's capability.

Barry

Thanks for the great explanation, Barry. I'm sure 32 GB and UHS 1 and class 10 will be plenty for me as I don't anticipate taking a lot of videos. Appreciate the feedback.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

According to the specs at the LG web site, your phone can take a 32GB microSD card or microSDHC, but no higher capacity.

The "class" think is about how fact the card can be read or written. It's not worth getting one less than a class 10.

This sandisk one should do you. Only $7.76.

Hey Paul. Thanks. And thanks for the links. Hey, what's the difference, besides the price, between the card in your link and the one in this link? Which one is better?

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra...143RT8OY/?th=1

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hey Paul. Thanks. And thanks for the links. Hey, what's the difference, besides the price, between the card in your link and the one in this link? Which one is better?

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra...143RT8OY/?th=1

The one in my link is better because it's a micro-SD card which will fit your phone, while the one in your link is a full-size SD card which won't.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The one in my link is better because it's a micro-SD card which will fit your phone, while the one in your link is a full-size SD card which won't.

Wow. Glad I asked. Thanks!

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The one in my link is better because it's a micro-SD card which will fit your phone, while the one in your link is a full-size SD card which won't.

I bought the card but then I cancelled because it was SDXC. From everything I found online it said the older phones (like mine) only support SDHC. I'd like the SDXC because it's faster but I'll check it out with LG tomorrow to make sure it will work before I buy it.

And I wonder what that means on the adapter when it has all three designations: microSD card, microSDHC and microSDXC on it. Hmm.

Like on this page, (they are all SDHC) which is for my phone:

https://www.mymemory.com/lg-optimus-...ro-sd.html?p=1

If yours is good I'll get it again. If not, can you pick a good one off the page from the link?

Hey Paul. I picked one up from Newegg, so I'm good. (No need to select one for me.) Thanks.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I wonder what that means on the adapter when it has all three designations: microSD card, microSDHC and microSDXC on it.

That just means the adapter will work with any micro SD card you put in it. That's true of most adapters.

You are correct that you need a micro SD that's SDHC for that phone. SDXC is a later standard for cards with higher capacity and you can't depend on it working in your phone.

Barry

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by barryem

That just means the adapter will work with any micro SD card you put in it. That's true of most adapters.

You are correct that you need a micro SD that's SDHC for that phone. SDXC is a later standard for cards with higher capacity and you can't depend on it working in your phone.

Barry

Thanks a lot, Barry. I finally bought one again. I got an SDHC Sandisk one for 32 GB. I checked it out with LG and they said it should work. Thanks for following through on this. Gregg