An AXE 128GB micro-SD card was on sale during Black Friday. I had never heard of AXE Memory. The only “AXE” brand I was aware of is a body spray. I did some Googling and learned that AXE was a Japanese company that made their memory in Japan and that was good enough for me to buy it. I ordered it along with a similarly priced 128GB Samsung Pro Plus card to compare.
My first impression of the AXE card was that its packaging looked a little “meh”, like the no-name electronics sold at Dollar Tree. This may be beyond superficial to many out there but my trained ‘graphic designer’ eye notices these things. One other feature was evident in the package, the micro-SD card was made in Taiwan, not Japan as I had previously believed.
This isn’t a slight on Taiwan, which produces half of the world’s DRAM chips. But this discovery served to remind me that just because a brand’s country of origin is no longer an indication of where its products are built. Case in point, the Samsun SD card wasn’t made in South Korea but the Philippines.
I tested the an AXE, Samsung, and a Sandisk micro-SD card using Black Magic Design’s Memory Speed Test App using both my M1 Macbook Pro’s built in card reader and an external UHS-II high speed reader. I included a Sandisk Extreme 128GB card because that’s the card I’ve been using prior to purchasing the AXE and Samsung.
The numbers I recorded were remarkably similar. The Samsun and Sandisk Write and Read speeds were nearly identical. The AXE posted a 4 MB/sec slower Write speed and a nearly identical Read speed. From a practical standpoint, AXE is as good. I would not hesitate to buy another AXE card if it were on sale below either a Samsung or a Sandisk.
This card is available on Amazon through my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Fthuju
