Samsung’s new PRO Plus and EVO Plus cards are for what it calls “Advanced Photography and Content Creation”
(Image credit: Samsung)
Samsung has just launched two high-performance memory card families with extra durability in the microSD format for smaller devices like smartphones, action cameras and drones and in the regular SDXC format for DSLR, mirrorless and compact cameras.
The new EVO Plus and PRO Plus memory cards are designed for professionals and content creators, videographers and content creators. The PRO Plus and EVO Plus lines are very close in performance, but it looks as if the Pro Plus line is slightly higher end. Samsung does say the new EVO Plus cards are up to 1.3x faster than the previous generation.
These new cards are designed to offer both performance and value, and all support the V30 video class and are ideal for 4K UHD video capture. They have also been designed for increased reliability and durability, which could prove especially relevant for action camera users.
Both card families support V30 recording speeds and offer “six-proof” protection against water, extreme temperatures, x-rays, wear-out, drops, and magnetic impact. They also support the higher A2 standard for general storage and application use in smartphones.
The new PRO Plus cards offer speeds of up to 160MB/s read, 120MB/s write and will come in capacities of 128GB ($34.99), 256GB (54.99), and 512GB ($109.99).
The EVO Plus cards come with a speed rating of 130MB/s and in capacities from 64GB to 512GB ($18.99-$99.99).
Interestingly, Samsung’s new full size SDXC cards use the UHS I rather than the UHS II standard, but this still offers the V30 class rating needed for 4K video, and high-speed 160/120MBs read/write speeds for regular stills photography and image transfer. (Not all cameras have UHS II card slots, and UHS II is typically needed only for high-end video capture.)
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These new SDXC cards offer “seven-proof” protection against shock, water, extreme temperatures, x-ray, wear out, drops and magnetic impact.
The EVO Plus cards will come in capacities from 32GB to 256GB ($8.99-$39.99) and will be available straight away, while the PRO Plus cards (32GB-512GB) will not be available until later this year.
Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com
