Transcend 128GB 800x Premium CompactFlash Review

The Transcend Premium CompactFlash card is a high capacity memory card promising 800x speed, the latest UDMA 7 technology, as well as video performance guarantee. On the box it also promises 120MB/s read and 60MB/s write speeds.

Transcend Premium Compact Flash 800x Features

Included is a lifetime warranty, RecoveRx software (available to download, which works with all version of Windows from XP upwards, as well as Mac OS X), as well as a rough guide as to how many photos and videos you can fit on the card. The card is packaged inside a small CompactFlash card holder which is in the middle of protective plastic packaging. Shown above, these photos show the card as larger than life-size, and on the back of the card is space for writing your details.



With 128GB storage space, Transcend say you can store 26,112 JPEG images at 10 megapixels, we'd estimate around 16,000 JPEG images at 16 megapixels, or 5300+ Raw images from the Canon EOS 5D Mk III, or 6.4 hours of FullHD video recording.

Transcend Premium Compact Flash 800x Performance

We tested with the USB3.0 Lexar multi-card reader. These are the speeds we got with this card:

USB3.0 Read/Write: 78.29 / 34.73 (With UDMA7 firmware update)

To test the read and write times of these cards, we used a USB 3.0 card reader and the latest version of CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64. For digital cameras, the write time is the most important aspect as this determines how quickly you can write photos from the camera to the card. The read time is important when you want to copy the photos from the card onto your PC or view them in playback mode on the camera.

While write speed is not as quick as specified on the box, the high-speed read speed means that copying (reading) the files from the card and putting them on your computer will be very quick. Much quicker than offered by any of the other cards used here for comparison. 

Value For Money

The Transcend Premium 800x Compact Flash card is available for £152 for a 128GB card, this is cheaper than the Lexar 800x 128GB card (£212, with lifetime warranty), and cheaper than a Sandisk Extreme Pro 128GB card (at roughly £300), combined with the liftetime warranty this is very good value for money.
 

Transcend Premium Compact Flash 800x Verdict

	The Transcend Premium Compact Flash card offers a very large capacity and excellent value for money.

The Transcend Premium Compact Flash 800x card offers the latest UDMA 7 technology and very fast read speeds, as well as a massive amount of storage. It is provided with recovery software, as well as a lifetime warranty, and as one of the cheapest cards available in its class it represents excellent value for money. I've used a number of Transcend cards personally over the years and never had a problem with any of them, therefore the Transcend Premium Compact Flash card comes Highly Recommended.
 

Transcend Premium Compact Flash 800x Pros

Value For Money
Lifetime warranty
Recovery software included
Very good read speed
Massive amount of storage

Transcend Premium Compact Flash 800x Cons

Write speed could be quicker

FEATURES
HANDLING
PERFORMANCE
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL