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SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB MicroSD Card

Sascha Segan
 & Sascha Segan Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

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SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB MicroSD Card - SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB MicroSD Card
4.0 Excellent

The Bottom Line

The SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I microSD card delivers the fastest speeds we've seen, but current mobile devices and applications can't make the most of it.
Best Deal£42.15

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£42.15

Pros & Cons

    • The fastest microSD card we've tested.
    • Expensive.

Sometimes the best is overkill. SanDisk's new UHS-I Extreme Pro Memory Card ($299.99) is the fastest microSD card we've tested. But I'm unconvinced that this bleeding edge performance justifies the extra cost, especially in mobile devices. While speed freaks will adore this card, most ordinary users will wonder what the fuss is about.

Memory cards are used to pump up the storage in many phones and tablets. SanDisk's Pro line is also heavily promoted for use in high-res action cameras and digital cameras that record 4K video. Right now, 64GB is the largest mainstream size for these chips; while we're starting to see 128GB cards, they cost a real premium.

SanDisk has several lines of microSD cards. We've tested the Ultra, Extreme, Extreme Plus and Extreme Pro. The Pro is the fastest. 

The SanDisk Plus and Pro cards are the first cards we've seen with a UHS Class 3 speed rating. According to the SD Card Association, that means they're capable of 4K video. SanDisk claims transfer speeds on the Pro cards of up to 95MBps.

To test microSD cards, we ran the A1 SD Card benchmark on a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 smartphone, copied files to and from a MacBook Pro using the built-in SD card reader, and ran the CrystalDiskMark benchmark on a Cyberpower PC with the cards plugged into a USB 3.0 reader.

New MicroSD Card Speeds

As you can see, the Galaxy Note 3 couldn't take advantage of any speeds faster than the Mobile Extreme card. The Pro showed some advantage on read speeds, and definitely some advantage in random reads and writes. But random reads and writes are rarely used with SD cards—they're more commonly used when you're running applications or an operating system off a drive, not storing media files.

The question then becomes whether the limited extra speed is worth the big jump in price. SanDisk tends to have completely silly list prices for its memory cards; this card lists at $299.99, which would make it a one-star product for being absurdly expensive. But SanDisk themselves pointed out to us it's selling for $99.99 on Amazon.

That's still almost double the price of SanDisk's Mobile Extreme card, which also offers excellent performance. We'll leave our Editors' Choice award with the Mobile Extreme card for the best balance of price and performance in the microSD card space.

Best Storage Picks

Further Reading

Final Thoughts

SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB MicroSD Card - SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB MicroSD Card

SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC/SDXC UHS-I 64GB Memory Card Review

4.0 Excellent

The SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I microSD card delivers the fastest speeds we've seen, but current mobile devices and applications can't make the most of it.

Get It Now
Best Deal£42.15

Buy It Now

£42.15

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

  • US and Canadian mobile networks
  • Mobile phones released in the US
  • iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
  • Mobile hotspots
  • Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services. 

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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