One of the current issues with smartphones is that they run out of storage more often, as files like high-resolution images or 4K video take more space than ever before. Thankfully, there are some smartphones that support expandable storage with microSD cards, which might come as a cheaper solution to getting more memory in your smartphone. Sadly, this practice seems to be becoming more unusual these days. Still, for those who appreciate having a microSD card slot in their phones, it is important to buy a genuine card, as a fake one could end up corrupting data or make the phone behave strangely. So here are a few tips to distinguish an original microSD card from a pirated copy.
One of the signs that might make you suspect that your microSD card is not original, include that the card might have less storage than advertised, for example, a fake card with a 64 GB capacity could have as low as 8 GB in reality. There are some firmware hacks that could make you see the larger capacity, but once you reach the real capacity, every other file will be overwritten into the existing data or it might simply not work as expected, since that storage space doesn’t exist. Another sign is that pirated cards might take much longer while reading or writing data, this could make the phone perform worse than it regularly does, and it might be the cause of lagging or crashing.
The packaging and the microSD card itself from counterfeits might look very similar to the original ones, but in most cases, the printing of both might seem a bit off due to a lower print quality or misaligned text or logos, there might even be a few spelling mistakes which would certainly not occur in an original product. Pricing is also an important sign, while some reputable retailers might price microSD cards quite differently, an extremely large variation of the price might be suspicious, particularly when buying from lesser-known retailers. To check if your card is genuine, you could download apps such as SD Insight from the Play Store, which might tell you some data about your card, such as manufacturer, model number, capacity and the manufacture date. The app won’t be able to gather all of the data from pirated cards. Still, you might as well try to reach the maximum capacity of your card, and if files are accessible at all times, then your card is genuine, otherwise, it might be safer not to use that card.
