[shideg]

Hello.

I own an Optio S4i. I've had it for a few years now. I can't find any information on what the maximum capacity of memory card the camera can accommodate.

It appears to be 1GB. If I put a 2GB card in it and format it, it appears as a 1GB card (I can check in another camera, and it shows up as a 1GB volume on my computer).

If I format it in another camera as a 2GB card, the S4i indicates double the (approximate) amount of pictures available, but as I reach about the half-way point of that estimate, the camera reports a memory card error.

So, either the model has a (not well-documented) 1GB limit, or my camera has a problem.

Does anybody know what the limit is?

Thanks.

[Gampa]

My understanding is that your Optio was designed to use 10MB of onboard built in internal memory storage and provided an SD card slot as extra storage. I believe your camera will only recognize max 1GB SD cards which was probably the maximum storage limit of SD cards in 2004. You can use larger cards but, as you found out, the camera will only format and recognize 1GB of those larger cards. I just checked the firmware updates for your Optio and there was only one firmware update, version 1.01, but I didn't see anything about recognizing a higher capacity SD card so I think you're stuck with the 1GB max.

[shideg]

Yeah. I checked the firmware update as well, and came to the same conclusion.

The camera seems to work fine with higher capacity cards after formatting them as 1GB cards. It's getting hard to find 1GB cards nowadays. I may have to reformat bigger ones.

Thanks.

[Gampa]

Yeah, 1GB cards are scarce and are becoming too small to use in new cameras. I think it's perfectly fine to format larger cards to 1GB and you can always reformat them to their manufactured capacity size later if you get a newer camera that uses larger cards. 2GB cards are plain cheap now and even 4GB cards are relatively inexpensive.

[shideg]

Yeah, that's my plan.

Thank you for your help.

[Pentaxie]

The optio s4i was introduced before year 2004. At that point of time only 16Mb SD card was supplied but i was informed that it can only take up to 1 GB maximum storage.

To answer the original poster's question, yes, you can only upgrade to 1 GB even though you used a 2 GB card. Anything above, error message will appear.
(Note : SDHC card should not be compatible, not sure why, but normal 1 GB SD card can be used)

[GerryL]

Yeah, 1GB cards are scarce and are becoming too small to use in new cameras. I think it's perfectly fine to format larger cards to 1GB and you can always reformat them to their manufactured capacity size later if you get a newer camera that uses larger cards. 2GB cards are plain cheap now and even 4GB cards are relatively inexpensive.

I have seen some less than 1GB cards but their cost would only be a bit less than the larger SDHC cards.
I almost bought one of those cameras just a few month back and ended up with the W80 intead.
I liked the size and how much they go for in the used market.

[Pentaxie]

1 GB memory card is scarce, nowadays.
I do still have 5 of them lying around somewhere. (3 of them in 3 of my compacts, 1 used as a spare card for ny dSLR and one more (I think) in my laptop.

Now, a 8GB card or a SDHC card cost similarly to a 1 GB SD card previously.