Matthew DeCarlo
Is your phone low on storage again? We’ve covered many ways that you free up storage on smartphones but few solutions are going to be as simple as buying more storage. And boy are you in luck: the SanDisk 256 GB Ultra MicroSDXC UHS-I is on sale for only $29.99 (it was once $150!).
It’s incredible how quick the price drops on these things, and while we haven’t seen this microSD card going for anywhere near $150 in the last little while, it has been selling for a steady $40 or so since around this time last year. Currently priced at $28.99, this is the cheapest the card has ever been and works out to only $0.11 per gigabyte—pretty mind-blowing for anyone who was into hobbyist computing a couple decades ago and paid far more for a fraction of the storage.
There are more capacities available than the 256 GB card we’re recommending, but none of them are quite as cheap per gigabyte ($0.13 per gig on upwards of $0.21 per gig). The 128 GB version is perhaps the second best choice at $16.99 if you don’t need 256 GB, though CamelCamelCamel says the 128 GB card has been a few bucks cheaper recently so this isn’t best-price-ever scenario like it is with the 256 GB model.
Besides simply boosting the total storage capacity of a smartphone, tablet, drone, or anything else with a microSD card slot, the SanDisk card we’re recommending here is stamped with an A1 “Application Class” performance rating. The A1 and A2 microSD card classifications indicate a minimum IOP performance for the card, which guarantees enough speed for certain use cases.
A1 cards are rated with a minimum random read speed of 1500 IOPS and a minimum random write speed of 500 IOPS. A2 cards step that up to a minimum of 4000 IOPs on reads and 2000 IOPS on writes. Having an A1 rating suggests that this SanDisk card is capable of handling workloads such as editing and updating app data, not just serving as bulk storage for pictures and music.
This SanDisk Ultra 256 GB also comes with a full size SD card adapter and features a “Class 10” speed rating with support for recording and playing video at a resolution of 1920 x 1080. SanDisk suggests going with the Extreme version of its microSD card if you want to work with 4K video. You’ll also spot a “U1” or UHS-I rating on the SanDisk Ultra, which is a classification introduced in 2010 that indicates when a card can support a theoretical maximum bus speed of 104 MB/s. And indeed, SanDisk touts a peak internal transfer rate of 100MB/s, though you won’t necessarily see that performance in every scenario (or even most scenarios).
Along with clicking through Amazon’s order process, apparently you can order this microSD card by speaking the command to your Alexa-enabled device. Just say “Alexa, order SanDisk microSD.” Note that Amazon has posted its cutoff dates for placing orders that you want to receive by Christmas. Non-Prime members only have until Saturday, December 14 to get their orders in when opting for Amazon’s free shipping (and you have to spend a minimum of $25 for that free shipping this year, unlike 2018).
SanDisk 256GB Ultra microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card with Adapter - 100MB/s, C10, U1, Full HD, A1, Micro SD Card - SDSQUAR-256G-GN6MA
The 256GB SanDisk Ultra microSD card is at an all-time low, so pick one up today.
$27.25 
$29.90 Save 9%
Source: Amazon, CamelCameCamel via Android Police
