CONCLUSION

   Before we talk about the new Exceria Pro N502 cards I think it’s very important to state the current performance requirements of both 4k and 8k recording. So although the minimum write performance requirements for 4k recording are set at around 10MB/s there are professional cameras and camcorders currently in the market that require as much as 70MB/s (for 60fps recording – models with 120fps recording require as much as 135MB/s). With 8k however things are much different and so there are 8k camcorders available currently that require as much as 270-300MB/s for 60fps recording (although such professional models use SSDs and not SDXC cards). With that out of the way although we clearly weren’t able to achieve the advertised performance of 270MB/s in read and 260MB/s in write during our tests we need to keep in mind that these numbers probably only apply for the 256GB model. Still while testing the 128GB model we were able to surpass 260MB/s in read and 230MB/s in write and although the 64GB model yielded less impressive results in write (topping up at around 150MB/s) still we doubt people would be getting anything less than 128GB for 4k/8k recording. What matters most however is that compared to SDXC UHS-I cards the new UHS-II models are almost three times as fast in some tests and with UHS-III models just around the corner that performance gap should grow even larger.

   Unfortunately as I type these lines the Exceria Pro N502 line of SD cards by Toshiba is not yet widely available and the result is inflated prices by the very few retailers that do carry them (we will update the review when this changes). That being said just like with the N501 line of SDXC cards again by Toshiba when released we don’t expect the N502 models to come cheap but that’s to be expected when we’re talking about some of the fastest SDXC cards out in the market today (not to mention that for demanding professionals who will actually need the performance numbers offered by the Exceria Pro N502 line of SDXC cards cost will not matter). At the end of the day things can’t get much better in terms of both performance and capacity than what you’re getting from the Exceria Pro N502 SDXC cards by Toshiba and that’s why they deserve our Platinum Award.

PROS

- Top Of The Charts Performance (UHS-II)
- Up To 256GB
- Durability
- 5 Year Warranty
- LC Technology Data Recovery Software / 1 Year License

CONS

- Current Availability
- Price (Just Like With The N501)