Panasonic SDHC Gold 8 GB UHS-1

Panasonic's new Gold range of SDHC cards are UHS-1 certified (Ultra High Speed Class 1). That theoretically makes for data transfer speeds of 60 MBps, but this can only be achieved over a USB 3.0 connection or with a compatible digital camera. Otherwise, the memory cards are back-compatible with the Class 10 standard for transfer speeds of 23 MBps. With performances like this, the Panasonic Gold 8 GB card we're testing today is clearly aimed at owners of UHS-1-compatible cameras, even though these are still quite few and far between.

Good read and write speeds

The advertised specs of this new Panasonic UHS-I memory card are seriously impressive. In practice, it doesn't disappoint, even though it doesn't quite live up to the manufacturer's claims. We measured read speeds of 38.2 MBps instead of the 60 MBps announced. At this speed, a 4 GB file can be unloaded in 1 minute and 45 seconds. You'll have to to wait twice as long to load a file onto the card, though. At our measured write speed of 18.4 MBps, it'll take 3 minutes and 35 seconds to copy the same 4 GB file onto the card. That's still a pretty good a write speed!