Every once and awhile I see a recommended accessory at an online shop and I think ‘wow that really would be useful and they’re offering a serious discount if I order it with my other product‘…
Today is not one of those days.
On one of Cabela’s product listing for a trail camera I found their own “Cabela’s SD Pro Memeory Cards” as one of the recommended products on the page.
Helpful right?
Nope.
I want you to look at something on Cabela’s SD Pro card page… Do you notice how the speed ratings are not shown in the description? That’s because they’re being deceptive.
“163x” is a marketing term used to refer to the card’s transfer speed relative to a CD-Rom. Those kinds of speed ratings are almost never used anymore and instead reputable manufacturers list the minimum read and write speed of the card you’re buying.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, or don’t want to know, I’ll just tell you right now that is exactly what Cabela’s is counting on and you’re being ripped off. All you want is something that works, they know that, so they’re selling you their own branded SD cards at an exorbitant price.
Don’t believe me?
Let’s have a look here…
Cabela’s wants $150 for a 128GB card. That in theory could be fair… people do pay that much for some cards. But not cards that are this slow.
Cabela’s SD Pro Memory cards are rated, by Cabela’s, as having a read speed (how fast the pictures can be accessed) of 24MB per second and a write speed (how fast the camera saves pictures to the card) of 17MB per second.
For comparison…
A 32GB card from Sandisk currently costs $19.99… so as much as Cabela’s 16GB which is half the size… and the Sandisk has a read speed of 95MB per second and a write of 90 MB per second.
Sandisk’s Extreme Pro 64GB card costs $33.07… which is A QUARTER of what Cabela’s is charging for theirs.
You can purchase 256GB of premium Sandisk cards for the price of a single 64GB card from Cabelas.
And these are Sandisk’s premium cards!
They’re much faster than Cabelas SD Pro cards!
A more comparable line of SD cards are the Sandisk Extreme gold labeled cards… They actually give slightly better performance at a lower cost.
| Sandisk Extreme | Cabela’s SD Pro | Overpaying for Cabela’s by % |
| 16GB costs $10.49 | 16GB costs $19.99 | ~ 90% |
| 32GB – $17 | 32GB – $39.99 | ~ 135 |
| 64GB – $27.5 | 64GB – $119.99 | ~ 340 |
| 128GB – $41.9 | 128GB – $149.99 | ~ 350 |
Cabela’s is ripping you off.
They know that all you want is something that works with your trail cam, you’re not sure what will, and they are taking advantage of that by charging you outrageous prices.
Do not buy Cabela’s SD Pro memory cards.
Go to Adorama or B&H Photo and buy some Sandisk cards for your trail cams.
As a side note, I have never had a Sandisk card that became unreliable or failed on me in less than 3 years of heavy use. For an SD card, that isn’t bad at all.
SanDisk is good, but PNY cards have serious reliability problems so don’t fall for their lower prices!!!