Lexar has been well regarded as one of the top memory suppliers for professional photographers worldwide. Lexar products are high grade and durable, designed for the daily wear & tear. The company has made strong relations with major camera manufacturers to ensure all Lexar memory cards are compatible with their digital cameras (from the simplest to the most complex models).

In this review we’ll be testing their 32GB SDHC edition of the UHS-I 400x lineup. UHS means Ultra High Speed.

Specifications:

• UHS-I technology for blazing-fast performance, with 400x (60MB/s) minimum guaranteed read transfer speed
• Excellent for capturing high-quality images and 1080p HD video with any SDHC-compatible camera
• High-speed, Class 10 card addresses the workflow needs of professional photographers and videographers
• Includes downloadable Image Rescue® 4 software to recover lost or deleted photo and video files**
• Free, dedicated professional technical support
• Limited lifetime warranty

Quality and technology:

Lexar’s Professional 400x SDHC™ UHS-I card is by definition a premium grade card, destined for use in professional equipment oriented mainly towards DSLR cameras.

The UHS-I technology delivers professional high-speed performance and reliability. 400x is equal to about 60MB/sec; this being a guaranteed minimum transfer speed. This SDHC card is an excellent choice for capturing high-quality images and 1080p HD video. Also available in these 400x SDHC UHS-I cards are 8, 16, and 32GB capacities. All Lexar memory cards come with a limited lifetime warranty.

Extras inside the box

The Lexar Professional 400x SDHC UHS-I card ships with the latest version of the award-winning Lexar Image Rescue® software. Image Rescue 4 provides reliable recovery of most photo and video files, even if they’ve been erased or the card has been corrupted. The software is available for free download with purchase of the card. (You can find this card inside the box with download link and registration details mentioned on the mini-flyer).

Test results

First we tested this card on an ordinary USB2 port. Yes, this UHS standard required USB3 ports to be able to leverage the maximum speed out of the SDHC card, but…  we just had to test on how it would thrive on a USB2 system, since USB2 is still more common than USB3. And no matter how much I like Apple systems for photo editing, USB3 is at current point in time still not integrated.

Test results on USB 2.0:

ATTO, even for memory cards, is still the holy cow amongst a swarm of similar third party software tools popping up everywhere. Still, we like to stay true to ATTO’s results.
Overlapping I/O (note: a DSLR only performs R or W actions, never overlapping, so these speeds show actual performance rather than mixed actions.

The SDHC card’s true write performance over USB2 kicks in at 64KB files with 26.7MB/sec, speeds retain this speed all the way up to 8MB files. Read performance for this SDHC card was quite impressive over USB2, starting equally in the 64KB size at 34,7MB/sec retaining this speed all the way up to 8MB files.

Test results on USB 3.0:

On Windows driven computers the UHS-I card met all box specifications. We will update this section as soon as we get hold of a USB 3 edition Macbook.

Final thoughts

When tested on multiple cameras ranging from Sony Alpha, Nikon and Canon’s semi-pro and professional grade DSLRs, we found nothing to complain about. Speed gain over ordinary memory cards is extraordinary and well worth the money if you are planning to cover high definition video with your DSLR.

A recommended product mainly made up by its reliability, consistent performance and limited lifetime warranty. The recovery software is a bonus when either you or the camera/computer messed up the content on your card. When things go wrong, the card’s built quality should be the last to blame.