komputerbay CF cards

Mar 25, 2011
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1,835
They got started selling counterfit mame brand cards on ebay and Amazon, and now just put their name on the cards. The cards are made in China for them, and its pot luck as to performance and reliability. They sell a lot of cards and really should change their name to distance themselves from their counterfeiting days.



You can easily google them to see. I doubt that many professional photographers risk using them, but some buy counterfeit batteries from ebay and never know it, so they should have no qualms about buying Komputerbay cards and memory. I have not seen any recent complaints about counterfeiting. I doubt that major card companies will sell to them, so who knows where they get the Sandisk Cards they sell. Probably from gray market.

http://www.photographyboard.net/stay-away-from-komputerbay-6575422.html

Personally, I'd never buy one.
 
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Mt Spokane Photography said:
They got started selling counterfit mame brand cards on ebay and Amazon, and now just put their name on the cards. The cards are made in China for them, and its pot luck as to performance and reliability. They sell a lot of cards and really should change their name to distance themselves from their counterfeiting days.



You can easily google them to see. I doubt that many professional photographers risk using them, but some buy counterfeit batteries from ebay and never know it, so they should have no qualms about buying Komputerbay cards and memory. I have not seen any recent complaints about counterfeiting. I doubt that major card companies will sell to them, so who knows where they get the Sandisk Cards they sell. Probably from gray market.

http://www.photographyboard.net/stay-away-from-komputerbay-6575422.html

Personally, I'd never buy one.
Thank you for taking the time to write. komputerbay's 128GB 800x is more expensive than Lexar's 128GB 800x cards. Sale ends Feb 29 '16 at 11:59 PM EST
 
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dolina said:
How happy are you with your purchase?

128GB 1066x CF cards are $93

I had three Komputerbay 1066x CF cards (including 2 of the above).

The first would not format in my 5DII. I sent it back.

Komputerbay reimbursed but also wrote and offered to send me a new card - for free - only asking me to pay if it worked.

I did not take this offer. But since they stood by their product I later bought a second card of the same type. This card has worked very well in both my 5DII's and 5DS R.

I have another 256 GB card which now "sits" in my 5DS R - works great and is very fast.

Depending on which card you are buying customer reviews for KomputerBay cards differ.

Used to only buy Lexar and SanDisk. However, a guy working at a shop selling lots of CF cards wrote some years ago on dpreview that he had tracked all returns and did not find any significant difference between the return rates for various brands from Discount to Sandisk Pro cards. Returns are seemingly very rare once the card is up and running.

Ever since I have been buying cards on the cheap. Transcend, PNY, KomputerBay etc. Served me very well so far.
 
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Mar 25, 2011
16,848
1,835
Maiaibing said:
. Returns are seemingly very rare once the card is up and running.

Yes, Electronics has infant mortality. For military use, all electronics is burned in to get past that early stage where failure is more likely. Later will come the wear out stage where failure rates jump. However, we have often purchased new and larger cards before that happens and leave those old 8 mb cards in a drawer.


I think that only a few companies actually make the memory chips for their cards, they have risen to the top probably due to buyer satisfaction.

Lexar is owned by Micron, and likely uses Micron Memory, but there is so much intermingling among electronics companies, its hard to be sure.

SanDisk is in the process of being purchased by Western Digital, I doubt if we will see many changes. They also make memory at Fabs around the world, so they also have control and QA over what goes into their products.

Kingston, Transcend, and a few other top quality memory companies make their own memory products, but purchase the actual memory chips. They are large companies and can afford the expense of good QA and surveillance of their suppliers which means a good product.

The lower end of the memory business purchases memory chips from various suppliers and assembles them into the final product. They are prone to higher failure rates, but still turn out products that are reasonable.

Of course, some sell relabeled products purchased from other memory manufacturers, so they might be excellent or lower end memory, depending on the source.

Then, there are the counterfeit operators who supply junk that does not perform to specifications and is sold on online marketplaces until they are kicked off. They just reappear under a new name.

I think that as long as you purchase from one of the top two tiers, you are ok.

Its hard to tell which tier Komputerbay resides in, they are trying to move up, of course.
 
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