dan | # 1 | 2007-10-24, 23:13 | Report

Dan here.

Thought I'd give everyone a hands on unscientific personal review of the new Patriot 16gb sdhc cards after having them for over a month.

FAST!!!! VERY FAST!!!!

To be honest I was a little apprehensive about spending so much money for the cards without knowing whether they would work. I needed to put a lot of work, personal and entertainment files and content on the n800 for my trips abroad.
I travel alot and the n800 with two cards slots is a god send. Hotels usually have bad foreign channels or expensive old movies. I now can carry about 15-20 movies on one external card plus an assortment of songs. I keep all the system files and important downloads on the internal card.

Music and especially movies run very smooth. I used to have glitches constantly when viewing movies. The frame rates would drop so low that I could not watch the movies I converted for the n800. Another plus is the battery charge can power two full 2 hour movies with plenty of juice left.

Games run much faster especially response times. They now feel like they do on my personal computer.

Internet downloads zip now. My old cards took too long to load downloaded files now they download as though I was on a regular computer. I no longer have to retry a download.

Photo viewer is very smooth and in slide show mode I no longer get annoying error messages when I click to next photo.

PDF reader is a joy now to use. It use to take several seconds to load next page. Now when I click it jumps immediately to the next page.

I did not do the last major upgrade because so many on this forum complained. I figured I would wait for the next major upgrade and spend time getting familiar with a linux based internet appliance.

I had to purchase a small usb card reader from Scandisk that was specifically made for sdhc cards. Transfer rates were incredidably fast compared to my older cards.

I really have grown to appreciate what Nokia has built and the contributions this community has done to improve the n800.

I love the new design of the n810 but without two sdhc card slots I will pass.
I think a keyboard is a good idea(one less item to carry), same for GPS(I'm dreaming of having local maps with pertinent info at my fingertips). A regular usb port would be magnificient and an ethernet port would cause me to burst out in broadway tunes. A lot of foreign countries even many European hotels don't have wireless hotspots. Forget about using bluetooth cellphone for internet because the rates are astronomical and the speeds really slow. Video out and hdmI would help with using the n800 for presentations on large screens or to watch movies my n800 movies on a big screen. A good camera(7mp's or above would be a great addition, but it would need to rotate like the n800 camera). I use my sony camera as a scanner. I just take a picture of the document(s) and I can later zoom in at a level that no scanner ever could. a sim card slot would complete my dream n800.

I'm new to Linux and this community of user and I hope this unscientific review helps others. If anyone else has bought 16gb cards please share your experience to see if mine were unique.

Peace

HandyG | # 2 | 2007-10-25, 00:34 | Report

very nice, what prog did you use to convert movies into a viewable n800 format?

Sadavyk | # 3 | 2007-10-25, 00:48 | Report

wow! Dan the man you must tell, how much did you pay for the card? and like HandyG ask what programs did you use to convert your movies? how did you get the cards to work did your n800 auto read the card?

dan | # 4 | 2007-10-25, 02:42 | Report

My PC died so I use an old Mac. I start with MacTheRipper 3.0. I just go to Title Set Extraction and select main feature from the menu. It puts the title set code in a file I select. When it finishes extracting the files. i then use a program called handbrake. I select 400x176 picture size and 2pass encoding. Both of these programs I downloaded for free at programs creators website. I made donation because they are so good together and so simple to use.
I paid $179 per card at Ecost.com and got a $20 rebate from Patriot. I paid $16 for the SanDisk reader at Bestbuy.
I just put the cards into the n800 and it worked right out of the package. I did do the sdhc kernal that someone from this community kindly created.
I find that 400x176 is the best size for the n800 player to read. The great thing about these two programs together is that they allow you to make a copy of any dvd you own.
Anyone have any other programs that work? I used these programs before the 16gb cards and the n800 player just could not keep up with the frame rate. Somehow the patriot 16gb class 6 cards help the n800 player read the frame rates quicker and smoother. They do this for all the programs on the n800.
Hope this helps.

Johnx | # 5 | 2007-10-25, 03:12 | Report

So you haven't installed the most recent update that fixes the SDHC card corruption problem? You might want to at least look into it given the volume of data that you put on those cards and how much you rely on them. Glad to hear that the cards are working out well though.

-John

delaroca | # 6 | 2007-10-25, 03:19 | Report

And does this latest kernel with the sdhc fix handle 16 GB sdhc cards natively?

--Denis

dan | # 7 | 2007-10-25, 03:51 | Report

I figured I'd wait till the full update John. I don't have a PC to do the update so I have to take it to a local computer shop to have it flashed. I've never really encountered the card problems others talk about. Any problems I have had with flash cards I created myself.
Also other threads here detail how to convert a dvd file to work on n800. I followed the instructions others laid out in previous threads the this site sadavyk and HandyG.
Hope this helps.
No one has bought 16gb cards yet?
They really are a marvel of engineering. When the 32gb cards come out I will buy them. Hopefully Nokia will release an n800 update with 2 sdhc slots(my dream machine above.) Reggie, maybe you could pass on my business traveller dream machine spec's to Nokia engineers.
lol

Pebkac | # 8 | 2007-10-25, 04:33 | Report

I have had a good experience thus far with SDHC cards in the N800 as well.

I use an 8GB Patriot from a retailer in Canada

And from the same retailer a 16gb model.

I use the 16gb in the internal slot and the 8gb in the external.

I do find it much faster by far to transfer info from my Vista machine using this device instead of connecting the N800 directly with the usb transfer cable. Also gives me the option for 17gb extra storage in my pocket.

This is with the latest 2007 firmware - Internet Tablet OS 2007 edition (version number 4.2007.38-2).

/salute!

dan | # 9 | 2007-10-25, 06:41 | Report

Pebkac very small and cool reader.
My old Mac does not seem to like having the n800 connected to it. When I try to eject the card it comes right back up. Does Vista have that problem? If I do the transfer using the sdhc reader no problems and it is very fast and stable. I've also learn to delete large files directly from the Nokia menu. When I try from the Mac I lose the memory space I just erased. I then have to go and reformat the card in a digital camera that takes sdhc cards.
Anyone experience similar problems?

Peace

convulted | # 10 | 2007-10-25, 07:49 | Report

If you look around these forums you will find instructions for updating the kernel from the N800 itself, and IIRC it supports SDHC fully. Better safe than sorry given the price of those cards! And you lose nothing, and it only takes a couple of minutes...