Eye-Fi Pro 4GB SDHC Wireless SD Memory Card Review Page 5
Benchmarking Eye-Fi Pro 4GB
I am not going into deep detail on benchmarking the Eye-Fi Pro over the wireless network. There are WAY too many possible scenario's that could result in better or worse performance. It's really going to depend a lot on how far away your camera is from the access point or Ad-hoc network, the speed of the WiFi, nearby interferences, and many other things. While my simple test was no where near scientific, it actually only involved a stopwatch, it might give you somewhat of an idea as to what speed you might expect.
When transferring ten images that average 2.5Mb in size with my camera 10 feet from the wireless 802.11G access point it took a total of 3.6 seconds to transfer one photo to the computer fully. So if you have over 100 photos, it's going to take over 5 minutes for the upload to complete with my current setup. Again, your speeds may be faster or slightly slower than this.
Where we can actually test real performance and easily measure it is with the memory card physically connected to the computer. While this is not the primary purpose of this device, I still thought it might be interesting to see where it stands when up against other SD cards that I have in my desk. 
The SanDisk SD card was one that I've had for many years now, probably over 5 or 6 years and I think the performance of it shows that. With a read speed of only 10X, it's the slowest one of the three. Next, we have the Kodak SDHC 2GB card which does very well with both read and the write test.
Finally, we have the Eye Fi SDHC Pro 4GB SD card which does good with the read test but the write test, it lacked quite a bit, trailing behind the Kodak card by a lot.
We used SiSoftware Sandra memory test and the above benchmarks were with 2MB files, since most camera's will be using 2MB or greater in size for photos.
Final Thoughts
Great features a side, there are a couple things to note that you may want to consider before purchasing one. One being the slower write speed on the card when utilizing the physical connection via a USB SD card reader. The slower write speed worries me slightly but digital camera now days usually can buffer many photos at one time before they even begin writing them to the SD card, so the slow write speed doesn't bother me quite as much than a slow read speed. The read speed was right on par with our other SDHC card, so no problems there.
The wireless network feature was a tad slower than I would have liked, I hope future generations of the Eye-Fi cards can build on the wireless capabilities to provide faster transfer speeds. The 3.6 seconds on average it took to upload one photo really isn't too bad when you consider having to find a memory card reader, and going through the hassle to transfer off the photos to your computer and then having to upload to a photo sharing site - that 3.6 seconds will suddenly begin to look a lot nicer!
Lastly, the Wayport HotSpot feature that gives you free access to over 10,000 hotspots is only free for the first year. Thereafter if you wish to continue the service, you must pay $14.99 a year. However, the Geotagging service is free and will always be free for the lifetime of the Eye-Fi card. Eye-Fi Inc. has a partnership with Skyhook Wireless to provide this free service and Skyhook provides wireless geotagging coverage of more than 70% of the population.
Overall, I am very pleased with the Eye-Fi Pro 4GB memory card and with all of the new improvements such as the ability to select which photos to upload and having the RAW transfer capabilities really make this card geared towards both professionals and consumers while previous generation Eye-Fi cards may have been geared more towards consumers only. The Eye-Fi card worked perfectly and as I expected when utilizing the wireless upload features. The Eye-Fi iPhone application was a nice free addition to being an Eye-Fi card owner and I'm really looking forward to putting that app to use, especially while on the go without my digital camera.
While it may not be the first choice for professional photographers, I can definitely see a huge market for consumers of families, teenagers, and the occasionally photographer who don't rely on the fastest SD cards around for a living.
The Eye-Fi Pro 4GB SDHC Wireless card costs $149.99 (EYE-FI-4PC) and is available now through www.Eye.fi.
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