The Polaroid 64GB High Speed SD Card is U3 rated and ready for 4K recording. Like many manufacturers of the best SD cards, they make bold claims about the maximum speeds that we weren’t able to fully prove out in our testing, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t perform well compared to the competition. Let’s look at how this card stacks up, and see how worthy it’s of your consideration.
Design: Boilerplate
The Polaroid 64GB SDXC card features a black plastic body and a yellow card locking switch. You will see the words “Extreme Performance” emblazoned on the front, re-assuring any passers-by that performance is not something you take lightly. Also visible are the capacity (64GB), SD size and performance classes (SDXC, U3, Class 10), and of course Polaroid’s unbashful proclamations about the card’s speed (95 MB/s read, 90 MB/s write).
Setup Process: No sweat
Like most SD cards, the Polaroid 64GB SDXC card requires no real setup. Simply remove the card from the packaging, and start using it straight away.
Performance: Fairly speedy
The Polaroid 64GB SDXC Card is a U3 rated SDXC card, which means that it’s guaranteed to perform at a minimum sequential write speed of 30 MB/s. Polaroid then goes on to claim that the card is capable of up 90 MB/s write speeds and 95 MB/s read speeds. “Up to” is the most important part of these statements. Polaroid could very well have been able to make this card write at 90 MB/s for a fraction of a second with a very small file. What matters to us, however, is the fastest speeds we can get the card to consistently achieve with realistic file sizes. For our tests, we focused on sequential write and read speeds using two benchmarking applications: CrystalDiskMark and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. With CrystalDiskMark, we tested sequential speeds using a 1 GiB file using 9 tests. For Blackmagic, we used a 5 GB file stress. In CrystalDiskMark, the Polaroid 64GB SDXC card achieved write speeds of 51.5 MB/s and read speeds of 87.61 MB/s. In Blackmagic’s Disk Speed Test, we recorded write speeds of 74.4 MB/s and read speeds of 91.2 MB/s. Neither of these tests managed to achieve write speeds all that close to Polaroid’s 90 MB/s claim, but this is still a fairly fast result for a UHS-I card. This will be fast enough to handle 4K recording on just about any recent camera that supports 4K recording, such as Panasonic’s GH5 or any of Sony’s a7 series.
Price: Priced out
Polaroid 64GB High Speed SD Card vs. Samsung EVO / EVO Select
The biggest threat to the Polaroid 64 GB SDXC comes in the tiny, unsuspecting microSD package of the Samsung EVO / EVO Select cards. These cards featured remarkably consistent performance (~65MB/s write) across all tests and testing platforms, and can be had for around $12. Both of these cards come with a regular-sized SD card adapter performed just as well inside their enclosure as they did natively. The Polaroid 64GB SDXC card is definitely a very fast UHS-I SD card, but current pricing makes it a difficult recommendation. Most buyers would be better off exploring a Samsung EVO microSD card (if they need speed) or one Lexar’s 633x SDXC cards (if they can live with a little less speed). The only real scenario that comes up in Polaroid’s favor is when speed is necessary, price is not a big concern, and a buyer is wary of microSD due to the tiny, easy-to-lose form factor.
