Chipfancier CFexpress Type A Memory Cards

[DJT]

I have just purchased a Sony A1 MK 2 along with some Sony tough, and Lexar Gold memory cards.
I've been having a good look into the different manufactures of cards for speed, reliability etc and stumbled across a make that appears to be fast and also good value.
The cards are made by Chipfancier and you can get a 256GB CFExpress Type A PCI express type 4 (I know the Sony cameras are currently only at type 2 and not 4) for around £90
The cards have been certified by the Compact Flash Association and are rated as being VPG400.
As these are certified I was considering getting myself a couple as they seem good value.

I was just wondering if anyone on here has had any experience of these memory cards.

 

[Tim Mayo]

I've seen them before but not looked into them too much. A few red flags for me would be that they only list the maximum read speed on the label which is always the higher number so looks better for marketing. According to the specs they do have a sustained write speed of 1500MB/s and are VPG certified on compactflash.org. The reviews on Amazon.com are absolutely glowing to a point where I expect many are fake.

Don't worry too much about the write speeds though as the A1 II won't be able to take advantage of the faster CFexpress 4.0 speeds in-camera. I've not tested the A1II yet but in my A1 memory card tests you'll see that there is little difference in the time it takes the buffer to clear between the top 15 cards that I tested but some cards are significantly slower.

Of the lesser well known value brands Novachips look promising. I recently reviewed their 1.6TB card and it performed very well. For some blatant self-promotion I also sell these through my UK store Memory Wolf. I hope to have some of their 800GB cards in stock next week and also their new 400GB cards which will be selling for just £129. I hope to have a review out for the 400GB card next week too as they do have slower write speeds compared to the larger cards so it will be interesting to see how they perform in-camera.

Type-A card prices having been dropping for a while now though and you'll find some good deals even with the better known brands. I sell a lot of Delkin and Angelbird cards as well.