Is there a "best" brand of compact flash card?

[WarlocK]

I think I've decided on the digi cam that I want (Canon s200, damn that thing is sexy ), and I know I want to pick up another compact flash card for it (it only comes with an 8mb one), but prices are all over the board on these things. Is there a certain brand that is "better" than another? Or should I just stick to the cheapest one I can find?

BTW, I found a 64mb CF card for $26USD (Samsung and Toshiba)

[WarlocK]

Thanks for the links bikkle, but I had already found the same places selling it for ~$250 from MySimon.

It also seemed like the deals from anandtech and fatwallet were either over, or only available in-store at stores that aren't in my area

Oh well.

[GomiGirl]

I recently tested a slew of CF data cards for a work project. Repetitive write and delete cycles of over a hundred cycles or more. And failure testing etc.

In all honesty, the more expensive ones performed MUCH MUCH better than the cheap and nasty ones. Also the cheaper ones required much more formating and even then sometimes failed. Also the cheaper ones tended to cause problems with the pins in the device and the drivers.

I went with H***chi in the end for various reasons. But just stick to the better known brands. I don't know what the retail prices are like and I am not going to tell you what sort of prices I get!!!

[WarlocK]

What about size? In your tested, did the storage capacity of the cards have any effect on how well the card stood up to the tests? Or is it pretty much just related to who makes them, regardless of how much they hold?

[GomiGirl]

I was only tesing 32 MB cards for a specific project.

Sorry I can't be more help.