memory sticks

As with all Sony products, memory sticks are more expensive than they should be. Lexar does a good job of getting the price at par with other media like CF and xD cards. Its transparent body is nice looking, but useless because you can either look at it or use it. The green led looks nice when its being read on my Clie... except that also has no real use either because there's already a red led on my Clie next to the slot which glows when it reads the media. The alternating red and green looks cool though.
This is a 128x2 MB stick. So you will either love or hate that you have to flick a switch. This also means that the 2 modules are a little less than 128MB, so overall, you would get more storage if you took a Sony or Sandisk 256MB memory stick. The switching becomes a pain when you are shooting MPEG movies with your CyberShot camera. That apart, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't buy it.

I bought this 256 MB memory stick because I wanted the flexibility of traveling for more than a few days at a time with my Sony (DSC P-9) camera without bringing along my laptop or any of the cumbersome devices for downloading photos. I figured that where my 128 MB memory stick proved too limited, combining its capacity with this new 256 MB stick would be just what I needed.

In the end, I was only partially right.

I don't have a problem with having to flick a tiny switch to have access to the second memory partition on the stick, and I've long realized that using a Lexar stick didn't present any obvious difficulties or shortcomings compared to the more costly Sony stick the camera maker recommends. But I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that each of the two parts of the 256 MB device held significantly less than the 128 MB stick I used before.

This is something I can't figure out, and I am not the kind of technical whiz who could accurately theorize why this takes place. But the evidence is clear: my 128 MB stick holds around 68 or 70 full resolution photos before filling up and on separate occasions, the 256 MB stick held about 55 or 56 on each side before it topped out. Both are from Lexar, so the problem is not problem stemming from the memory stick maker. And the 128 MB stick is older, so the blame can't be placed on any unannounced technological advances. The only thing I can assume is that the partitioning of the stick or the cataloguing of so much information somehow uses up some of the memory built into the product.

Does that mean this product is a bad investment? Well, I'm not sad that I bought it. It more than doubles the total number of photos I can take without downloading, to around 190 from around 80 (counting the 16 MB stick that came with the camera) for what seems to me to be a reasonable price. But if you are buying this counting on having exactly twice as much space as you'd find on a 128 MB memory stick, I think you'll find this product comes up more than a little bit short.

I have this Lexar stick and the SanDisk SDMSP-256-822 256 MB Memory Stick Pro. Unless you have an older camera that is not compatible with the Pro technology I highly recommend buying a Pro stick instead. The Pro stick does not have an a-b switch and it writes faster than the older memory sticks.

It is important however to make sure your camera (as well as any card reader) is compatible with the pro stick.