Well, I got a high speed card and a USB2.0 SD card read/write adapter and here are my findings:

CAMERA USAGE:

It didnt seem to make any difference when taking photos or bringing them up on the display. Both cards seemed to take the same amount of time to do these tasks (even when saving as a raw tiff photo).

PC TRANSFER SPEEDS:

Test Equipment:
- An older 256MB (?x speed) Lexar Media SD Card
- A new 1GB (66x speed) T-Pro SD Card
- Optio 555 Camera
- USB2.0 SD Card Adapter
- PC (with USB2) running WinXP
- 179MB iso file

* The 179MB file was just a random file that was large in size but not too big either so it would fit on the 256MB card too.

Results: (time required to read/write th 179MB file from/to the SD Card)

Using the USB2.0 SD Card adapter:
256MB SD CARD
- 52 seconds to write
- 30 seconds to read
1GB SD CARD:
- 27 seconds to write
- 30 seconds to read

Using USB connection to Optio555:
256MB SD CARD
- 3 mins 47 seconds to write
- 3 mins 48 seconds to read
1GB SD CARD:
- 3 mins 48 seconds to write
- 3 mins 48 seconds to read

Well it seems that the camera is the bottle-neck here. It took me almost 4mins to transfer my 179MB file to or from my PC using the factory Optio555 USB cable, compared to about 30 seconds using the USB2 adapter!

As for the speed diff between the cards, well it seems that the so called higher speed card is a bit faster in writing data to the SD card. However, from a digital camera point of view all focus is on reading the photos from the SD card, and the diff I found between the two cards is not much (if any).

My advice (assuming my Lexar 256MB SD card is the slow type - and it should be, because i baught it obout a year ago), is if you are using an Optio555, save your money and not bother with a superfast high speed card. I would also recommend buying a USB2 SD card adapter for downloading your photos onto your computer - it is much much much much faster!

Brad.

Well i suppose there are two things to mention here:

Even if the write access times do not improve much, with a high speed card reader it will make it a lot faster to download the photos onto a computer (so there is one good thing already).

As for the speed increase in the camera writing to the card... well I suppose it depents on the camera, and how fast it's writing ability actually is. If the camera's write speed is slow, then increasing the speed of the card will not increase the overall speed. If the camera has a fast write speed, then putting in a high speed card might allow the camera to use it's full potential and write as fast as it was designed to (not being slowed down by the card).

The problem is that i cant seem to find any info on how fast my camera (or any other camera) is actually able to write at, so it is hard to know if it will help.

Hope that helps.

Btw, I am going to get a high speed card today and find out. I shall try and post again soon and let you know if it made any diff.

Well I got an answer on this, and thought i would share it with you guys in case anyone else was wondering:


Dear Brad,
Both Optio 550 and 555 should be compatible with 1GB and 2GB high speed cards. It has become the norm to have high speed cards in Japan.
However, please note that the rated speed of a card is not what you will get when used in a camera. For example, card A has a speed of 50X and card B a speed of 100X. When used in a digital camera, it does not mean that card B will be twice the speed of card A.

Hi guys,

I have an optio 555, and i have a 256MB SD card in it.
I was looking to buy a new card to put in it.

Just wondering if there is a limit to the card size that i can use?
I was thinking of getting a new 1GB hi-speed card, but will not bother if it cannot use the entire 1GB or utilise the speed.

Thanks in advance,
Brad.