Cheapest prices for Sony Memory Stick?

[Harrison]

Does anyone know where I can find the cheapest prices for Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo cards for use with the PSP?

I'm looking for two. One is for my girlfriend's new PSP so she can run some ISOs and emulation from the Memory Stick, so a Memory Stick of at least 1GB is needed.

I am also searching for a 4GB Pro Duo card for my own PSP, but I'm finding it hard to locate any. I want to purchase a Sony made 4GB one though as there have been many problems reported with using third party 4GB sticks made by SanDisk and Lexar.

So far the best prices I have found are £15.99 for a 1GB stick and £29.99 for a 2GB stick. Both are Sony branded sticks and were the same price as the third party SanDisk ones.

As for 4GB sticks, so far the best I've seen is £67.99 for a Sony one which is too expensive in my view.

Also has anyone heard anything about the 8GB Memory Sticks? As you can see in the image above they do exist; well they did in the Sony announcement for them which this image was taken from. I've not seen any actually for sale though.

[Demon Cleaner]

You can get them on eBay directly from Taiwan (or whatever) for very cheap. Oz ordered some 2GB sticks for only 35$ each with shipping. Unfortunately he didn't get them, he was somehow screwed

But there are many sellers at eBay and you can get them for really cheap.

[rayzorblue]

Hmm that story doesn't really inspire confidence in buying them from Taiwan does it?

[Submeg]

Yes, you can get them cheap, otherwise you get ripped off

[Harrison]

Indeed! If anything it put me off!

I've heard quite a few scams on ebay from sellers reporting to be shipping from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Eastern locations, so wouldn't touch such sellers.

Looking around a bit more it seems that £66 is the cheapest I can find anywhere currently selling 4GB sticks. The 2GB sticks have dropped a lot and are now £29.99 and the 1GB are around £15.

It is very annoying the Sony Memory Sticks are still so expensive compared to other memory card types. You can now get 1GB SD cards for £6 and 2GB ones for £11. Why are Memory Sticks still so expansive? More complex? or just less demand, so more expensive to manufacture?

[Demon Cleaner]

Why do you want to buy a stick from Sony anyway? I have seen some tests at a PSP forum, where a guy tested some different brands of sticks, and it happens that all run almost at the same speed. Even the Ultra or High speed sticks do not run faster as supposed.

[AlexJ]

The other risk with buying your memory cards off eBay

[Harrison]

Why do you want to buy a stick from Sony anyway? I have seen some tests at a PSP forum, where a guy tested some different brands of sticks, and it happens that all run almost at the same speed. Even the Ultra or High speed sticks do not run faster as supposed.

The main reason is quality. I've read many people saying their third Party Memory Sticks have failed after a year or less. In contrast I've not read of anyone saying their official Sony Memory Sticks have failed.

There are also two other reasons. Looking around I've noticed that official Sony sticks are exactly the same price as the third party sticks now, and the other reason is warranty. The Sony sticks come with a 5 year warranty.

The final reason is many people have mentioned compatibility problems with third party 4GB sticks and the PSP, whereas the official 4GB stick works fine.

[Submeg]

Yea, I wont touch 3rd party sticks, they are relatively new on the market, so you want to know that it works. For example, nowdays generic mem cards for the PS2 are easy to come by and you know they work...but I wouldn't have trusted them when it first came out...wouldn't want it to fail and lose all my gameplay...I would cry....

[Harrison]

The difference though is that you can easily backup the Memory Stick data from your PSP to your PC for safe keeping so it's easier to back it up. Not so easy on a PS2 where you would need a PS2 memory card reader for the PC to do this and they are hard to find.