At first we would like to thank Toshiba Corporation for offering a sample of their FlashAir III Class10 Wi-Fi SD Card for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About Toshiba:

 

“Toshiba is a world leader and innovator in pioneering high technology, a diversified manufacturer and marketer of advanced electronic and electrical products spanning information & communications systems; digital consumer products; electronic devices and components; power systems, including nuclear energy; industrial and social infrastructure systems; and home appliances. Toshiba was founded in 1875, and today operates a global network of more than 740 companies, with 204,000 employees worldwide and annual sales surpassing 6.3 trillion yen (US$68 billion).”

 

Product Features:

 

Amazing Wireless Convenience

 

Taking photographs and sharing them with your friends and family is now even more comfortable. Just use the latest version Toshiba FlashAir SD Card together with the FlashAir mobile App and select the shots you like to share. From a selected day with the people you want to. Up to seven devices can access FlashAir™ from Windows® PC (Explorer) or Mac (Finder) via Wi-Fi. FlashAir™ III delivers speedy data transfers so you can quickly upload images and videos. Transfer your images from your camera to any wireless enabled device, instantly. Simple. The card has embedded wireless LAN so you can automatically transfer images to your tablet, PC or smartphone without needing cables or adaptors. The 16 and 32GB Class 10 SD Card can be used exactly like a regular SD Card and so can be used in any digital camera with an SD Card slot.

 

Easy Wireless LAN Setup

 

You do not need any drivers, software or cables. Just slide your FlashAir™ SD Card into your camera or camcorder and setup the wireless LAN function using a PC, tablet or smartphone.

 

Easy Way to communicate

 

In addition to supporting access from web browsers, the latest FlashAir cards include WebDAV support to provide photo management functionality for PC and Mac users.

 

Low Power Consumption

 

Optimized for battery powered devices, the wireless function is switched ON only when necessary, keeping the power consumption low.

 

SD Memory Card Standard

 

The world’s first SD memory card to meet SD Memory Card Standard for data transfers over card-embedded wireless LAN.

 

5 Year Warranty

 

Engineered to Toshiba’s famously high quality standards, the FlashAir™ Wireless Memory Card is backed by a solid five-year limited standard warranty.

 

 

Product Specifications:

 

 

It is time to have a look at the next revision of the FlashAir SDHC cards from Toshiba, which sport the handy wireless data transfer function; the product is sporting a similar packaging as before, showing the wireless transfer capabilities of the product but also the total storage space; make sure that the model is named W-03, now W-02 in order to get the latest available revision:

 

 

 

The back side of the cardboard packaging reminds us that we are dealing with a 5-year warranty and here we will also get to see the product code name:

 

 

 

The inside contents are composed of the card itself inside a transparent plastic enclosure, but also the user manual:

 

 

 

The card has the exact same size as a regular SDHC card, with a sticker on top representing the product name, current revision, the wireless capabilities, Class 10 transfer rates, storage capacity but also the manufacturer name:

 

 

 

The lock button is present on the side:

 

 

 

On the back side of the product we will get to see way more information than on a regular card; the MAC address of the WiFi interface is also present here:

 

 

 

After inserting the card into our card reader, we found out that it was pre-formatted to FAT32:

 

 

 

In order to find more details regarding the transfer rates, we fired up HD Tune Pro and ran the Benchmark test:

 

 

 

Next we have ran the File Benchmark test and found out that the card exceeds the specifications of Class10:

 

 

 

For a real-life test, we have copied a large file to the card and then it was transferred back to the HDD; before the file was transferred back, we have rebooted the system in order to avoid using a cached version inside the RAM:

 

Read

 

 

 

Write

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to FlashAirTool, we are able to customize the advanced functions of the card:

 

 

 

 

The tool allows us to set a custom SSID for the newly created wireless network, a password, enable the redirecting function, but also the Internet Pass Thru Mode, something that was missing at the Wi-Fi card from Silicon Power:

 

 

 

 

The Wireless LAN mode can be started in two ways, manual or auto:

 

 

 

From the same application we will be able to reinitialize the card:

 

 

 

Before operating the card, we must make sure that the camera will always keep the FlashAir connected, otherwise the newly created wireless network will only be available for a short while:

 

 

 

After loading our favorite browser, we should be able to navigate to http://flashair/ and the web interface will be shown to us right away. The same interface will be available on either iOS or Android:

 

 

 

 

We have performed file download operations with the Internet Pass Thru Mode active, but also with it turned off:

 

Internet Pass Thru Active

 

 

 

Internet Pass Thru Inactive

 

 

 

On our 200/6 download/upload ISP subscription we have fired up SpeedTest.net in order to find the download limitations of the FlashAir with the Pass Thru Mode active:

 

 

 

With direct connection to the router in the same location we have obtained:

 

 

 

After downloading the FlashAir application from Play Store we can launch it right away and if we are connected to the hotspot of the card, we can check out its internal contents right away:

 

With the same application we can check some details of our FlashAir card:

 

 

The Settings menu allows to customize the app even further:

 

 

After clicking upon one photo, we'll be able to check it full-screen on our device:

 

As the previous FlashAir 32GB card we have tested, its latest version comes with about the same features, but we have improvements on the transfer rates, while we have seen that the wireless speeds have remained the same. Regarding the wireless interface, we can obtain similar speeds as with the previous version, but keep in mind that multiple factors can affect the wireless transfer speeds like the number of available 2.4GHz networks in the area, shielding inside the camera we are using FlashAir on, performance of the Wi-FI adapter from our desktop/laptop/tablet and so on.

 

With the new version of FlashAir we have also seen a mobile OS application available, which makes browsing even easier and at the same time we can adjust lots of options.

 

Regarding the ease of configuration, this is pretty straight forward; the only thing we need to make sure when operating the Wi-Fi hotspot of the FlashAir is that our camera supplies power continuously to the card and will not enter power saving mode. As soon as the camera will enter the power-saving mode, the power will be cut out and the hotspot will automatically disappear, stopping all current transfers.

 

Compared to the time when we have reviewed the previous revision, the prices have dropped dramatically, making this product very attractive to acquire. At the time of the review, the FlashAir W03 32GB can be bought online for about 35 Euros, but we also have the 16GB version available for 24 Euros or the 8GB version for just 17 Euros.

 

Toshiba FlashAir III Wireless SD Card is Recommended For:

 

 

We would like to thank again to Toshiba Corporation for making this review possible!