Even Kingston Knocks Off Kingston microSD Cards?

Bunnie Huang , one of the minds behind the celebrated Chumby , see a strange yield trouble when buildingChumby Oneswith Kingston microSD cards — namely , some microSDs seem to be nonadaptive counterfeit . The catch ? They were bought directly from Kingston .

https://gizmodo.com/chumby-one-review-totally-frivolous-but-totally-adora-5403517

Huang ’s observations adopt him down a lapin maw of microSD manufacturing , a fairly epic seeking to discover the trueness about Kingston ’s manufacturing process that , while never conclusive , had some interesting finding :

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• patronise around for Kingston cards from street trafficker in China , some were evidently tangible and others were obvious fake . But there were definite “ irregular ” gray area model — like those that caused depleted yields in Chumby production — that have questionable build quality likely due to Kingston engage the piece of work of crumby product partners .

• Kingston appears to buy all the actual flash storage chips inside their microSD cards from Sandisk / Toshiba , yet they often still deal to undercut the microSD toll of manufacturers like Sandisk and Samsung . Of course , Kingston needs to make up the money somewhere , and the controller chip is the only other stead that ’s potential . So Kingston may be load their thresholds of comptroller micro chip timber to make profitability potential — at minimum , the impetus is certainly there .

Of course , even if Kingston is padding supply chain of mountains with low - grade cards , I ’m guessing such is more a worry for manufacturers ( and purchasers of said manufacturers ’ product ) than the random bozo at Best Buy picking up a newfangled microSD card , as Kingston plausibly champions the transparency of America ’s retail market over the mirky backwater of Taiwanese diligence . Probably . [ Bunnie Studiosviaboingboing ]

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