Can You Use microSD Express Cards In A Nintendo Switch?

After being introduced almost five years ago, microSD Express cards look to be finally making their way to the marketplace. Samsung recently announced that it has been working with microSD Express cards that have read speeds of up to 800 megabytes per second. Although their theoretical speed is 985 megabytes per second, that is still an incredibly impressive read speed. For comparison, Samsung's current PRO Ultimate microSD card boasts 200 megabytes per second, and that is the fastest speed the company offers. Getting a card that is four times the speed will be a massive time saver for reading, saving, and loading.

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Currently, Samsung has only announced plans for microSD Express cards to be in 256 GB models, but that is still a good size for something that powerful. There is no release date set yet for the product, but the company expects it to hit the market later in 2024. With this faster technology, people may be eager to get one into their devices. This is particularly true for Nintendo Switch users, who find themselves reliant on microSD cards for their gaming. The question then becomes if these new Express cards would work on their Nintendo Switches, and it seems people will have nothing to fear.

A backwards compatible card

Even though a microSD Express card may be four times faster than your traditional card, they will work with any device that uses other types of microSD cards. So, whether you want to use them for shooting with a digital camera or saving your game progress on a Nintendo Switch, a microSD Express card will be compatible with no issues. All that is changing with these new cards is the interior interfaces and not how they link up to your devices.

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With this 256 GB card, you would probably be able to fit about 25 games on your microSD Express card, just the same as the other 256 GB microSD cards already on the market. The difference would just be in the save and load times you have to deal with while playing a game. For some gamers, removing that waiting is integral to an immersive gaming experience, and if you are one of those people, you may want to get your hands on an Express card as soon as they become available. If you value space over speed, then you should instead look at the 512 GB and 1 TB microSD cards already on the market.

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