http://www.dealextreme.com/p/designer-s-ultra-high-speed-memory-stick-ms-pro-hg-duo-memory-card-16gb-44845 - For people looking for cheap, high capacity memory sticks, I got two of these a few months ago and they work perfect. The games load fast and there's no game or save file corruption at all. From what I have seen a lot of people have meesly 1GB cards. You shouldn't sacrifice quantity for quality when you can have both. Very cheap and very reliable.
But does it actually have magic gate functionality? At that price I'm assuming it's another hong kong rip off that tricks you into an easy sale, I got fooled, I got one that said sony and the stick said magic gate... Then the psp complained.
You can't boot in normal mode, but you can boot in service mode. Unless you have a cardreader and can format it. Then it will boot. Works perfect for me. I didn't write a review, but you should check them out. Post Merge: [time]1297144435[/time] The site has all kinds of awesome stuff. Just be sure to read the buyer reviews (if any are available) before you actually buy something.
I don't believe they have magic gate as when I check the magic gate compatibility on my PSP it shows up as unknown. The cards work perfectly fine though. I've tried every thing: ISOs, CSOs, Eboots, Plugins, etc. Everything works the same as my official Sony 4GB card. I'm a paranoid guy and I wouldn't have bought the card if I didn't think it would work. And it does-perfectly.
No magic gate (ethier unknown or not supported) means shorter life times or in some cases slower read speeds. I'd rather not risk.
Do you have any proof that memory sticks without magic gate have shorter life spans? I'm not saying your lying, I just want proof. And...the read speed is faster than my official Sony memory stick. If you are skeptical about buying the memory stick, I recommend this - http://www.dealextreme.com/p/sdhc-microsd-transflash-tf-to-memory-stick-pro-duo-adapter-converter-16gb-max-17789 - Micro SD cards are cheaper than memory sticks. You can buy them cheap on Amazon. I use this with my 8GB Kingston. It loads even faster than my 3rd party cards.
I only have what I read in many articles in the past, prehaps they improved fakes since, I don't know... Thing is, I do not endorse 3rd party accessories, from memory cards, controllers, and batteries.. And for that new link, I had a dual adaptor, had 2 8gb's, SLOW AS FUCK!
Buying third party products off of the internet is like playing the roulette. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you get fucked over. At least if it stops working or does'nt work on arrival, you can just send it back. I was looking at the memory stick MSD adapter reviews and some peoples load fast and some (like yours) are shit. Luckily every third party device I've bought for my PSP so far works perfect.
Via ebay I have to run a maze, in a local shop I just have to do what I do best, get in their face and demand instant refund. In an online shop other than ebay is an even bigger hurdle... Also I read reviews on my dual micro sd adaptor, there is no official/fake to it because it's unofficial to begin with, and overall... I have no faith in third party gear.
Though I like to take risks every once in a while, I totally agree with you. I will never again buy anything off of ebay however. A lot of stuff on there is broken or at least damaged before it arrives. Then you have to chew the fat with some stupid prick and end up without a full refund. Thing that sucks is I got a used PSP 3000 at Game Stop in December. I didn't like that I couldn't fully hack it so I returned it and got a PSP 2000 when I checked the MS slot there was no memory stick. I had gotten a 4GB memory stick with my PSP 3000, but I forgot to pull it out before I returned it. The guy working there was an amateur and didn't even check the slot. I could have drove back and asked for one, but I didn't feel like driving 40 miles. My trucks is a gas guzzler. Still kinda pisses me off as MS's are pretty expensive.
That is what you pay for, quality...funny how in most things you are paying for the brand name and not quality. And game store clerks are idiots, in eb games stores they arent allowed to leave the ms in, as in one apparent case there was PORN found on a stick...if a kid got the psp I bought... Lucky mine didnt have porn but I was happy with the stick, just a sony 1gb which I now use for loading chickHEN to other psp's. Ebay has been good to me, I just dont buy memory cards from them often as buying fakes and fake ones are the norm...you dont sell me a $70 rip off that looks like the real deal and expect to get away scott free!
Totally, even if you buy a third party MSD, it most likely will say Sony on it (mine did). I trust Deal Extreme so far, (I like cheap stuff) but I still wouldn't purchase anything without good buyer reviews. I've seen the same sticks I've got on ebay, being sold as official MSDs For twice the price .So I definitely wouldn't buy a so called official Sony MSD off the site. But...even when you buy an MSD or Micro SD directly from Amazon (not the sellers), there is still a chance you can get a fake card. There are fakes everywhere, it's inevitable, but if you want chance at 16GB rather than 4 for the same price, with a small risk, It's totally worth it. ( I would never take the risk of purchasing a 32GB stick however. )
I read the reviews on the seller from ebay who gave me a fake stick, obviously very little people now what a fake stick is. So much for this guy's 100% rating from 500,000 people!
