Choosing a microSDXC card for a smartphone

[ORLY]

Hello, please help me choose among these options:

~44.30$ - Kingston 256 GB microSDXC class 10 UHS-I U3 Canvas Go! Plus + SD Adapter SDCG3/256GB
~44.35$ - Samsung 256 GB microSDXC Class 10 UHS-I U3 EVO Plus + SD Adapter MB-MC256HA
~46.60$ - Samsung 256 GB microSDXC Class 10 UHS-I U3 V30 A2 EVO Plus + SD Adapter MB-MC256KA
~49.70$ - Transcend 256 GB microSDXC UHS-I U3 V30 A2 340S + SD Adapter TS256GUSD340S

The smartphone is a Samsung M12. And I'd like to overpay for a memory card only if it makes a difference.

 

[cvaldes]

I would buy the one with the longest warranty.

 

[Vya Domus]

And I'd like to overpay for a memory card only if it makes a difference.

It doesn't, apps will install on the internal storage anyway, so there will be zero performance impact.

It's possible that on some catastrophically slow cards you might have problems recording 4K video or something along those lines but I think most phones restrict video recording to internal storage anyway.

 

[TheLostSwede]

A2 cards are specifically designed to improve the performance of apps being installed and running on the card, i.e. those cards have higher IOPS and this might matter if you intend to run apps from the memory card rather than the internal phone memory.
Everything else appears to be pot luck when you buy memory cards, as I have gotten some really cheap ones that have outperformed ones that are three or four times the price.
I tend to stick with Sandisk though, although Toshiba's Exceria cards are also good. Samsung are meant to be good to, never used them.
Try to find some reviews of the cards to see if there's any real world performance difference, as the rated speeds mean nothing, as it's up to.
The Class ratings are als useless as a Class 10 rating just means that the card will not have a slower sequential write speed than 10MB/s, whereas U3 and V30 just means it won't be slower than 30MB/s, but it says nothing about the actual read and write speeds.
Finally, it depends on how good the SD card controller in your phone is, if you'll get the full performance out of the card or not.

SD card - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Shrek]

I would go for endurance

Amazon.com: SanDisk 256GB High Endurance UHS-I microSDXC Memory Card with SD Adapter, 100MB/s Read, 60MB/s Write : Electronics

Amazon.com: SanDisk 256GB MAX Endurance microSDXC Card with Adapter for Home Security Cameras and Dash cams - C10, U3, V30, 4K UHD, Micro SD Card - SDSQQVR-256G-GN6IA : Everything Else

 

[elghinnarisa]

I used a samsung EVO Class 10 U3 64GB in my Samsung S9 for a couple of years, never felt like I had an issue with it at all. Although it did mostly store just media, pictures, videos, music etc.
The only thing it did not allow me to do was to record it's 960fps video on to the SD card, but I believe that is a blanket decline no matter what SD card you had in it.
How well it performed, I do not actually know. But well enough for me never to give notice to any concerns related to it's performance at least.

 

[ORLY]

Ended up buying the Samsung MB-MC256KA. It feels kind of fast.
Thank you everybody.