July 3rd, 2008
Sometimes you don’t realize some of the good tools you have with you and you always aspire to get stuff that you almost never usually get. Take for example video blogging. I’ve been planning to get one of those Flip video recorders ever since I read good reviews about them and been scouting around for it in Chennai with no luck. And all this time, I’ve been sitting around with my N82 which has pretty decent video feature.
So, instead of waiting for the perfect solution, decided to play around with what I’ve got. And the right opportunity came by. I received the SanDisk 8GB SDHC card and decided to do a video review of it. If I had a little bit more presence of mind (and more patience), I could have done an unboxing video which would’ve been kinda cool.
Anyways, I took the product out for a walk around my apartment and here’s what I felt about the card.
For smooth viewing, hit play and then hit pause. Give the video a minute and then play again.
For you bums too lazy to see the video 
, here’s my impression of the product.
1) Wow! This tiny thing can hold 8GB?? I still remember the computer exhibition that I went to where I bought a 4GB hard drive. We’ve come a long way.
2) Love the fact that there’s a tiny card reader that comes with the card. Plug it in and it turns into a thumb drive. The thing that I didn’t like is that the card doesn’t fit into the reader smoothly. You’ll have to kinda shove it in and parts of it juts out. Many who don’t take the effort to read the manual, would force it in deeper damaging the card.
3) Apparently, the card is quite strong I’m told, though I didn’t get around to testing it. It would survive a 10 foot fall. I’ll just take their word for it, thank you.
3) In addition to photos and videos, you can store word files, pdf and just about any file.
4) 2000 songs, 20,000 photos, Hours of video. There sure is a lot of space. Again, it just blows me how they could have so much space in such a tiny thing!
5) The card can be used in mobile phones from Motorola, Sony Ericcson, Nokia. Just make sure they are SDHC compatible. You could even use it in video games, GPS devices and DSLR cameras. Didn’t know that bit.
6) The transfer rate from the card reader to PC is 4MB per second. That’s one song a second. Not bad.
7) Add to the fact that there’s no additional software required to install, and this one get a thumbs up from me.
Now, the only grouse is that it’s so bloody tiny and for a guy like me who has the ability to lose a laptop, I don’t see this thing last with me too long!
Now for my experience and lessons from doing the video.
1) I put on a very strange accent, especially at the beginning of the video. That’s not how I usually talk. And I hate it.
2) I wrote down the key points I wanted to talk, on a Post-it note and stuck it to the side of the phone. That greatly helped me in the flow.
3) I shot this video at noon when the sunlight was directly over me. That created dark shadow and hence had to find a shadowy place. Even then, the buildings around were very bright from the sunshine and that caused the object in front (my mug) to darken. Early mornings or evenings would be a better time.
4) I had to hold the camera horizontally to get the video and that’s not a comfortable position to hold the camera. We are so used to handling the phone in a vertical position. Besides, holding the camera in an outreached position for a whole 4 minutes can get a bit painful. I overdid on my pushups exercise and that made it even worse!
5) The surroundings were fairly noisy, yet, quite happy with the sound clarity.
6) Realized that I should never move between a bright sun-lit area and the shadow area. The camera takes a little time to adjust and by that time, all you see is a black silhouette.
7) Realized that video is a powerful tool that helps you communicate certain things that you would never be able to do so in words. Like how the card fits into the tiny card reader to become a thumbdrive.
I hate the fact that the video sounded pitchy. Must remember to get more critical!
9) I should remember to hold the phone a bit higher. The view up my nose usually isn’t quite flattering.
9) And yeah, I should stop that f***ing accent and just be myself.
19 Responses to “Video Review of the Sandisk 8GB Card”
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Kiruba,
More than the accent, the video goes upside down in some cases. Reminded me of parallel cinema where they show a fan from all weird angles.
Anyways, thanks for the review.
Amazing stuff !… I am waiting for a iphone review
and kiruba that SDHC stands for Secure Digital High Capacity 
As you have said in the show many times, you have really meessed it up.
2 most irritating things were 1. your freely rotating camera 2. Your thinking aloud “let me show you” etc.
Bad show, but nice post as always…
Hey Kiruba, i think its a Good Start, and the best part is you know where to improve.. keep it going … Probably One day You can host a series similar to David Pogue
Nice vReview. But ill suggest a few points.
1. Dimensional Size is not an USP for 8gig card. Even a 1 gig SD card is of the same dimension.
2. Could have got in the difference between SD and SDHC card
3. Not many mobile currently support SDHC…they support only SD cards..
4. Could have shown less of Kiruba and More of the product.
5. Dunno why u chose outdoor.. An indoor video with the piece connected to ur system would have conveyed the message
6. Xfer rate on a USB or USB 2.0? Could have benchmarked it against some standard factors.
7. Too much backlight.. most of the time ur face was in dark shadows..
Giri,
Thanks for the feedback. You made some good points and yup, the review could have been more informative. I’m beginning to get a hang of this and after a performance like this (!), the only way I can go is up
My points below yours.
4. Could have shown less of Kiruba and More of the product.
Totally agree.
5. Dunno why u chose outdoor.. An indoor video with the piece connected to ur system would have conveyed the message
Tried indoors but the lighting wasn’t sufficient. Besides, outdoor videos give an element of airiness to it that makes it that much more watchable. Atleast, that’s my take.
7. Too much backlight.. most of the time ur face was in dark shadows..
Correct. Need to take care of this the next time around.
The important thing is that I was enjoying the entire experience and once that happens, things usually get a lot better.
Vats, David Poque did you say? That’s a real high benchmark and getting there is one of the goals, even though its a super tall one.
Ganesh, thanks for the critical feedback. Totally agree with you about the rotating camera and the cliched ‘let me show you’. Appreciate it.
Ah, so that’s what SDHC stands for, eh! Thanks AShok.
Parallel cinema, yup that’s my inspiration!
Nah! just kidding. Shows how amateurish I can get. like I said, the only way I can go from here is up. Hopefully, things get better.
These product review videos work better when someone else is shooting, that gives the reviewer two hands to handle the product.
And also, i think you posted the video directly unedited, right ? You could’ve edited out the bad parts and filled in with retakes of the lines and was the video shot all at once ? I don’t think any video review or unboxing video is done from start to end at once, the trick is to break the review it into parts and shoot each part at a place best suitable for it (like you could’ve used your PC to explain the transfer speed part) and then paste everything together, also you could use some on-screen text while giving out the specs ( at least for this product the specs part was very less) ..
My 2 cents..
Kiruba,
when you reviewed your video and found all the issues that you should take care of.. why didn’t you just reshoot the video.. It not like you sanked in a whole lot of money and made a movie
Its like practising public speaking in front of the public.
-Patrick
the face of the subject is too close to the camera
at the same time if you have made it far away, the audio quality may have taken its back seat.
my 5 paisa
maintain some distance between the cam and the subject so that enough surroundings come into the frame and make it more interesting
record ur audio separately and mix it with the video
I think the video is quite nice in content. Just echoing some other stuff that people have already spoke:
- more footage of product needed, especially make it fill the screen space to let viewers get a good feel of holding it in their hand.
- Trying not get the whole thing in one shot and breaking it up into smaller shots.
Two additional things that would definitely help:
- Try not to speak continuously while shooting. That would allow you later during editing to cut out portions from the video that are good. It is impossible to cut shots if a conversation is going on.
- You cannot believe the difference that a tripod can do to you. I understand you have a mobile phone, but you should quickly move to one which allows you to keep the camera static else you will make your viewers giddy.
Hey Kribs,
Hmm.. 4MBps?? Could I interest you in reviewing a product that accelerates writes to the product to about 12-16MBps?
I’ve seen performances of approximately 1GB per minute.
* that accelerates writes to the same SD card to about 12-16MBps?
Good to see you again.
Had you just hosted another vodka tasting?
Ok, where did you buy it and how much was the cost? Thinking of getting one for my phone.
hahahahaha… the accent looked like you landed from US after your first trip to US… Kiruba??? but gave us a good laugh…
Review was impressive… Accent was funny…