 | Sony 512 MB Memory Stick Pro Duo (MSXM-512S)
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Average user rating:  | |
| Fast, reliable | |
| Yeap, this works really well with the Sony PSP. Out of the box, Windows reports this has 490MB available. This is due to the different ways storage manufacturers and Windows calculate capacity. In Windows, 1MB=1024KB, 1KB=1024B, whereas for storage manufacturers, 1MB=1,000,000B, so "512MB" is really less than that as calculated by Windows.
Most PSP games seem to use about 600KB - 800KB for user data storage. Most MP3 songs encoded at 128kbps bitrate come out to 1MB per minute. So if you have two games and use the rest of this Memory Stick only for MP3, you can hold about 122 songs. Not something to write home about, but you can always download your favorite tunes to the Memory Stick and play them when you take a respite from gaming. It's difficult to say how much video you can hold, because that depends entirely on how you encode (bitrate, audio quality, etc.). As a rough rule of thumb, this card can hold about one hour of acceptable-quality video. You can access this Memory Stick Duo card by either hooking up your PSP to your PC directly (using a $5 mini-B USB 2.0 cable), or using a USB reader. I use the Sony high-speed reader (model # MSAC-US30), which is super-reliable and super-fast. If you have a third-party reader or laptop that can only take the full-size Memory Stick -- "Memory Stick Duo" cards are less than 50% of the full-sized Memory Sticks -- this package comes with an adapter that turns the Memory Stick Duo into a full-sized Memory Stick. Sandisk has a 1GB Memory Stick Duo card for about $125, which is also a good value. But in the past I had inconsistent reliablity experience with Sandisk products, so I much prefer using a Sony Memory Stick Duo. 512MB is okay for now, but I think I'll need at least 1GB for the full PSP experience: one movie, a couple short videos, 30 or so of my favorite songs, and game data for a few games. I imagine it'll be another year before 2GB Memory Stick Duos come down to the $100 level. | |
| Great product! | |
| This Memory Stick is a great buy for use in the Sony PSP and has a capacity that can hold up to 180 5 MP digital Images, 500 Minutes of music (ATRAC3), and 230 Minutes of video (.MP4, QVGA)! This MS has a ton of space and will provide lots of storage space. |
