Thanks for responding and explaining.

While the suggestion that posting to the digital camera forum has some validity, what I was after in the first place was to find some kind of testing-based information about whether the marketing hype about flash memory speed had any applicability in the real world and how to find and use such information.

Memory makers assert higher speeds in their ads, but you need to bring along a magnifier to the store to find any documentation of write/read speeds on the packaging ... and mostly it's not there, anyway!

Considering that print and online reviews of other digital products are replete with charts and graphs of various performance benchmark results, I'm finding if particularly difficult to find any comparisons of flash memory read/write speeds vs. manufacturers' claims or between brands.

But, from the users' end of things, the actual speed of an SD card makes the difference between a Canon Powershot S2's ability to record a video continuously until the card fills or only until the camera's internal buffer fills.

My online searches never did provide the information I was seeking, a rare event with the tools available on the Internet.

I chose your magazine's site as my favorite provider of digital expertise and I will continue to do so.

In the meantime, I ended up buying a couple 1-gig SDs by a second-tier distributer because the online retailer's listing showed them as having 133x write speeds and they were somewhat inexpensive. If they deliver even half that speed, I'm guessing I'll be alright with my camera's video requirements. (Guessing, of course, because there's NO DOCUMENTATION AVAILABLE!!!) (I did go to your camera information center and, by golly!, there was no information offered about flash memory speeds, just the recommendation that having more than one card is a GOOD THING)

And if they don't perform, I'll only have lost $70, which isn't much???!! (Well, it WOULD pay for more than one magazine subscription, wouldn't it?)