Transcend 133X Compact Flash Memory Card
Transcend’s 133X CF cards are targeted at users who need reliability and greater performance and the 133X Compact Flash (CF) Memory Card is a ‘godsend’ for reporters, photography enthusiasts and professional photographers. The Transcend Flash Memory Card is simply the tick as it is pretty large enough for professional work or even for a fun-filled day out, with no real data loss. It is always quick to download and its ease of use is worth appreciable.
But let truth be told, the Transcend is no way closer to the speed of the 30Mb/s version of Sandisk as a point of comparison. This said, the Transcend card simply seems to do the job without the slightest of hassles. Let us see what the Transcend 133x CF card has in store for us in terms of performance and value in the following review.
Features:
The Transcend 133X Compact Flash Memory Card as the name implies is a compact card measuring 42.8mm x 36.4mm x 3.3mm in size and weighing 11.4g that you need to ensure you do not lose it anywhere, despite the fact that you can easily slip one into your pocket for convenience and safety. The card is based on the ATA interface that helps connect it to your computer. The cross-platform compatibility comes as a big plus. Confirming to CompactFlash type I standards, it could operate either in a CF Type I or CF Type II slot. The RoHS compliant Transcend 133X is designed for 10000 insertion/removal cycles and is pretty durable requiring lower power consumption.
Dual-channel support: Transcend has made sure the card embraces good compatibility and speed as this card works in both the Ultra DMA mode 0-4 (default setting) which supports speeds from 16MB/s – 33MB/s, as well as dual-channel mode giving you non-stop video recording and shooting with some of the best DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras on the market.
ECC technology: The CF 4.0 compliant Transcend 133X cards are built from the ground up for reliability and speed. These cards feature integrated ECC (Error Correction Code) that helps automatically detect and rectifies errors during the transfer of data. This helps prevent missing files and data corruption. The manufacturer has ensured that it makes use of only branded MLC NAND Flash chips and components of superior quality during the process of manufacturing for longer durability, robust and quality performance.

Performance:
Test results with highly rated cameras: As a user, what do you look for in a flash memory card of this sort? There can possibly be only two factors, one is speed and the other should be size. Talking about the speed, we found the card being on the slower side, particularly when you are shooting in RAW (the data that gets written on the flash memory card at full high quality without any compression and simply by the way, the camera sensor tends to see it). Now that is okay, but if you need to review the pictures a lot, you may get frustrated. We are sure that there are faster cards available on the market as we tested it with the Nikon D60S and had no issues when we were copying data forwards and backwards onto the computer. Transcend 133X gave more than 500 RAW+ JPEG images with the Canon SLR. And the good thing here is that it is able to save much faster than the Extreme II considering it is the market’s top card even in continuous mode. Coming to the in-camera speed which was tested by shooting in continuous mode, the card showed good all-round performance. You can also use it as a semi-permanent drive making use of a PCMCIA card reader and this can hold all the photos which your hard drive is otherwise cluttered with. And mind you there could be problems at times if you are working with multiple images.
Testing it with the Canon 50D & Canon 7D, we had to concede that the card is not express fast for full RAW photographs in continuous mode, though in single mode, it is reasonably good. We also tried using the Transcend 32GB CF card to shoot 1080p HD video at 30 fps on the 5D Mark 2 and we were able to capture a whole lot of pictures (about 1350 RAW). There have been no issues with it even after shooting for as much as 30 hours of video footage. Furthermore, testing it with the Canon EOS 1DS MK 3 only showed positive results. There were no obvious speed penalties either working with the Nikon D300, particularly when writing NEFF (RAW) files of 12 bit size.
Finally testing it with a Sony A200 DSLR gave us about 2000 JPGs, but testing it with the RAW produced about 500 when it is empty, so here the speed is absolutely fine. Transfer speed of RAW files from the camera is not bad either by any means, though we have no real comparisons.
Data transfer speeds: The data transfer speeds of up to 21.5 MB/sec have been good and we tested this spec against an 80x 2GB Lexar CF disk and the Transcend came up thumps with the write speed almost 20% faster which is a welcome improvement on the Sony A200. The Transcend is quick enough to take a few burst of photo shots on the JPEG in addition to the RAW setting at 6.5 frames/sec with no significant loss of speed that we can detect on our Canon EOS 400D.
Read speed: We found the Read speed fast enough as the time consumed to download a huge number of JPEG ‘RAW’ files straight from our camera onto the PC though the camera’s own USB cable without read/write errors was comparatively short. The 16GB version of this card was used on the EOS 40D and we were so impressed with the speed that testing the 32GB version on the EOS 50D was nothing short of spectacular.
Write speed: If the Read speed is good, given the price (which is useful when it comes to downloading data), the write speed is even better. It proved better than what the Kingston 133x could deliver, just to draw out a comparison as using the Kingston 133x in burst mode was just painful. The write speed performance could be rated somewhere between the Extreme III and IV of Sandisk and for a price tag which is slightly lesser than the Sandisk Extreme II.
Capacity: The Transcend 133X CF cards are available in a wide range of capacities including 1GB/2GB/4GB/8GB/16GB & 32GB. Like most memory cards on offer, a particular percentage of space is allotted for header information, so this means it has a usable capacity and least it should give you peace of mind that you have got huge memory capacity in case you require it. Therefore, if you are a Canon EOS 400D Rebel XTi user, you will appreciate its fine speed plus the huge storage capacity, given the price. But if you are someone who uses Canon 40D for shooting, may be you will look for a faster card. Then we have a review on the SanDisk Extreme III 2GB SD Memory Card which will help you to make a smarter decision on how fast your memory card needs to be.
We even tried it with the e620 Olympus, the storage looks like it will never end. We had the 16GB version on the Canon Eos 1 which allowed us to catch important shots and if there is something more you can expect out of the card, it should be increased storage and shooting time. Therefore, it is rather fine when transferring images by linking the camera to the PC. Nevertheless, you have space to store nearly 1500 photos on the card even when you’re shooting with RAW.
We were able to capture about 4000+ high quality 15mp JPEG pictures using a single card and that is probably 10% more than that on a 10MP camera, though it differs according to the type of pictures that is taken as apparently there are some pictures that have a bigger file size. You need to remember that some cameras, particularly the older ones do not go well with the high capacity compact flash memory cards, therefore you have to check your model for compatibility before going for this card just to avoid any sort of disappointment.
Issues with formatting the card: We would like to know if anyone had problems formatting the card with the Sony SLR. It seems like XP is unable to read it and cannot re-format it. But we do believe it has nothing to do with the card as Default windows will not be able to format devices above 8GB. If you are using on a Sony SLR, then do not format it either with it. Choice ‘B’ is to make use of the Software to do the formatting directly. There have been problems obtaining the full 16GB out of the Transcend 133X, if customer reviews are any indication. Having formatted the card ourselves in the EOS400D, we were able to manage formatting it to 8GB. This again we feel has a lot to do with the Canon camera, as nothing went wrong with the complete 16GB card with photos. Anyway, if you format the card with the camera and you could use only 8GB, make use of MS windows (or whatever OS you have) and remove the partition with the Disk Manager and then the next step will be to create and format a fresh partition for the full 16GB. It is as simple as this!
Warranty:
The Transcend 133X CF Memory Card is covered under a limited lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects and faults, which starts from the original purchase date.
Verdict:
With reasonably good burst rates that enable continuous stream of data with no write-failures or data loss, besides brilliant capacity range, the Transcend is almost a steal at this price. There are lots of cards way quicker than this on sale, however if you are an amateur photographer learning the nuances of the trade, this type of mid-range flash memory should suit your budget. The card which comes in an original Transcend package does everything the manufacturer proclaims and more importantly does it well on all counts.
Transcend 133X Compact Flash Memory Card – Specification Table
| Manufacturer | Transcend |
| Model Name | Transcend 133X Compact Flash Memory Card |
| Available capacity | 1GB/2GB/4GB/8GB/16GB/32GB |
| Type | Compact Flash (CF) Card |
| Size | 42.8mm x 36.4mm x 3.3mm |
| Weight | 11.4g |
| Data transfer | Up to 21.5 MB/sec |
| Technology | ECC technology |
| RoHS compliant | Yes |
| Highlight features | 10,000 insertion/removal cycles Multi-platform compatibility ATA interface CF 4.0 compliant Ultra DMA mode 0-4 supported card Dual-channel support CF Type I standards compatible Fast 133X performance |
| Warranty | Limited lifetime warranty |





