Category Archives: Marketing
SanDisk Marketing – Careful not to fall into the trap
I was looking for SDHC memory card for Deb since she is going to HK/Japan with her mom next month, and I ran into another marketing trick that I have to blog about. This is NOT the first time I see SanDisk doing these kind of marketing tricks, I just can’t believe big companies can be so cunning (but it’s totally legal). For you being a customer, you should know about this.
Looking at the flyers above, that price seems very attractive for 15MB/s, right? Wait… see the * besides it? what does it mean? Let’s understand the speed of memory card.
For Compact Flash, depends on the brand they will usually specific read/write speed:
- 10X = 12 Mbps (1.5 MB/sec)
- 50X = 60 Mbps (7.5 MB/sec)
- 100X = 120 Mbps (15 MB/sec)
- 150X = 180 Mbps (22.5 MB/sec)
- 300X = 360 Mbps (45 MB/sec)
For SDHC, industry standard are being identified using “speed class rating” specifies a MINIMUM sustained write speed:
- Class 2 = 15 Mbps (2 MB/sec)
- Class 4 = 32 Mbps (4 MB/sec)
- Class 6 = 48 Mbps (6 MB/sec)
- Class 10 = 80 Mbps (10 MB/sec)
Now go to SanDisk official SDHC site, see the small print at the bottom. Quote ” * 15MB/sec read speed. write speed lower. Based on SanDisk internal testing “
Do you see the problem?
Why the hell do you need 15MB/sec Reading? This is tricky advertising to attract customers. Ask yourself, if you need to capture HD video, you need fast Writing speed (for recording), not Reading (for playback)! The photo I took above, it has a “C” with “4″, that means “Class-4″ which has only 4 MB/sec minimum WRITING speed. Tips: Always look for “Class” for SDHC cards because it is the industry standard.
For example, if your camera has minimal requirement of using Class-6 (6 MB/sec) and you can easily fall into this trap by just comparing with the speed 15 MB/sec vs 6 MB/sec, and you think you got a good deal – sorry, you are another victim of SanDisk. Well, the possible consequence is that you will end up having some choppy videos in HD. Can you imagine you only find that out when you try to play it on your HDTV or computer after coming back from vacation? Please, shop smarter for your SDHC and educate your friends about it.
Related Topics I wrote in the past
Have fun..
Sandisk Cruzer 8GB REVIEW – transfer speed is slow as hell
Last time I went to the Buffalo and bought a Sandisk Cruzer SDCZ6-8192 from BestBuy, because it was 50% off (around $20 US) so I bought it without looking at the spec. Recently I opened the package and only after using it for an hour, I wanted to throw it in the garbage bin. I would have rather spent the money on a cake at Cheese Cake Factory rather than buying this piece of shit USB drive.
Sandisk Cruzer is so so so slow, compare to Apacer I have been using for 3 years – I just can’t believe that Sandisk is still selling old memory and market it as “High-Speed”.
Suspected Marketing tricks behind SanDisk
Trick #1: To maintian competitiveness on the market, they have to lower the price. How? Use cheap memory, also SanDisk may need to get rid of the slow memory they have in stock. This has been a known marketing trick, namely a new line of product doesn’t mean the hardware is the latest. Similar tricks have been used by Dlink and Linksys on NAS devices – they used old CPU to lower the cost.
Trick #2: Another marketing trick I found, Sandisk NEVER published the transfer speed, they don’t have it on the package and I couldn’t find it on their web site, they only say “High-Speed” to lure customers. Very clever but I am very disappointed. My 3 year old Apacer 2GB Handy Steno HT203 has clearly identified it is 133X High Speed (Max. 20MB Read, Max. 14MB Write speed).
SanDisk Cruzer vs Apacer Handy Drive
Now, let’s put it to the test. In Visual Studio 2005, compile a simple project (Folder size is 112 MB, with 1737 Files) with source code on USB drive, no compression or encryption.
Sandisk Cruzer took 3 min 35 seconds
Apacer Handy took 2 min 11 seconds
The difference is 84 seconds, Sandisk is 40% slower. Unbelievable – I don’t know why people on Internet are rating this piece of shit product 4 starts to 5 stars. If I were to rate this - 1 star only. Sorry. DO NOT BUY Sandisk Cruzer if you are looking for performance, period.
After Thoughts – $20 for Marketing Lesson
From the reviews and comments on the Internet I read, that proves that most customers are looking for big storage, not performance, yet SanDisk has a very successful marketing campaign. They caught me and I just spent $20 US to learn from SanDisk on such a wonderful marketing lesson.
Learning from Starbucks Marketing
If you are not a regular Starbucks customer, you may not notice Starbucks has some good marketing skills. On their menu, they have prices for size “Tall”, “Grande” and “Venti”. However, many of you may not be aware of the smallest size, called “Short” is missing from the menu.
Furthermore, to make customers fall into their plan, they have real cups showing in front of the cashier. Yet, “Short” is apparently not there. At the cashier, when you are trying to decide what to order, you will get distracted visually, thinking “Tall” is the smallest size you can get. Well, isn’t that very smart?