Lexar nCARD Nano Storage Card Review (64/256GB)

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Typically, one might think of Nano cards only when it came to cell phones. The nano SIM card, in its original iteration, allowed us to communicate. Huawei changed that. Their newer releases have dual nano slots that can be used for two SIM cards if you travel alot, or for additional on-board storage memory.

The price of storage is perhaps one of the sole reasons we see such high-priced smartphones. Manufacturers want to do away with the ability to increase storage through external cards because, well, they want your money…plain and simple. Huawei went the other way, but then again, they really didn't. They gave us the ability to increase storage through purchase of a nano storage card… but then they were the only company you could buy that card from. They had a monopoly of sorts…until today.

This morning Lexar is releasing 64, 128 and 256GB capacities of its newest nCard. The nCARD is identical in size to your Nano SIM card and uses the eMMC 5.1 protocol to deliver speeds up to 90MB/s in Huawei smartphones, or any other smartphones that might be released in the near future with dual SIM slot. To say that it is small is a bit of an understatement; this is the smallest storage medium available to the consumer in the world today.

The Lexar nCARD supports Huawei devices that have a dual SIM slot and include Mate 20 and newer, as well as Nova, Honour, Enjoy and Matepad Series devices. It comes with a limited 3-year warranty and is fully capable of capture, playback and storage of media files up to 4K.

MSRP pricing for the Lexar nCARD is expected to be $49.99 for the 128GB, $99.99 for the 256GB and pricing for the 64GB was not yet available at time of launch. Checking Amazon right now, we are seeing the Huawei 128GB card at $143US and the 256GB version we are testing today at $207. Competition is good. The Lexar nCARD is almost 3 times cheaper at 128GB and half that of the Huawei at 256GB. Check Amazon.

The only way to test Nano memory is within the Huawei smartphone and with apps available. Listed specifications for the Lexar nCARD NM Storage card are 90MB/s read and 70MB/s write. Our results of 84MB/s read and 75MB/s write were very close. We thought it only fair to run a comparison of the Huawei 256GB NM Storage card as well.

Taking into consideration that this Huawei NM storage card has been in constant use for several months, these results are both more than satisfactory. Similarly, our results with the Lexar 64GB nCARD were the same as that of its 256GB counterpart.

This photo says quite a bit about Lexar. They were first in the industry to release 1TB SD and microSD cards and they are first to release a third party NM card. We will be releasing our report of their newest Lexar Professional CF Express Type-B card soon which is capable of 1750MB/s in-camera performance. Lexar has always been known as one of the best in media storage and their interest is simple; they want to maintain that image. They are not afraid of manufacturing a product simply because it hasn't hit mainstream yet and their quality and support have always been beyond reproach.

Their latest nCARD is available in several capacities, has a 3-year warranty, top performance and it's price point is significantly lower than any other on the market.

Check for Lexar nCARD NM Card pricing at Amazon.