Samsung and SanDisk dominate the microSD shelf, but comparing them the wrong way leads to the wrong buy. The most common mistake is pitting SanDisk Ultra — SanDisk's budget card — against Samsung EVO Plus, a mid-to-high tier card. The fair fight is EVO Plus vs SanDisk Extreme. Here is how the two best-selling 128GB cards for Android phones actually compare, using manufacturer specs, independent lab numbers, and Indonesian street prices from early November 2026.

The spec sheet

Samsung EVO Plus 128GB claims up to 160 MB/s read and 120 MB/s write, rated U3, V30, and A2, with a 10-year warranty. SanDisk Ultra 128GB claims up to 100–150 MB/s read depending on generation, does not list a write speed at all, and is rated U1, V10, and A1, with a limited lifetime warranty. SanDisk Extreme 128GB — the real EVO Plus rival — claims up to 190 MB/s read and 130 MB/s write, rated U3, V30, and A2.

Sustained write is what matters

The "up to" number on the box is a burst speed. What decides whether a long 4K clip records cleanly is sustained write. Independent lab CKBench measured the EVO Plus 128GB at 83.6 MB/s sustained write versus 59.7 MB/s for the Ultra. Filling a 128GB card (119.2 GiB as shown on a phone) takes about 24 minutes on the EVO Plus and about 34 minutes on the Ultra at those speeds.

A1 vs A2: the real Android difference

For photos and video alone, the App Performance Class barely matters. But once you move apps to the card (adoptable storage) or store games there, random small-file writes take over. A1 guarantees at least 1,500 random read IOPS and 500 random write IOPS; A2 guarantees 4,000 and 2,000 — four times the write floor. I ran a small workload simulation on my own machine (writing 2,000 tiny 4 KB files with a sync after each, the pattern app data follows) to feel how expensive synced random writes are, and the class minimums translate to 4.0 seconds of work on an A1 card versus 1.0 second on an A2 card. The full comparison with the numbers is in the original article: https://www.miftahulrizki.eu.org/2026/11/microsd-samsung-vs-sandisk-untuk-hp.html

4K video: V10 vs V30

Video class is a guaranteed minimum sustained write: V10 promises 10 MB/s, V30 promises 30 MB/s. 4K30 at around 48 Mbps needs about 6 MB/s, so V10 is fine. But 4K60 at around 100 Mbps needs about 12.5 MB/s — above the V10 guarantee. A V10 card like the Ultra can record 4K30 safely but risks dropped frames on long 4K60 clips. V30 cards like the EVO Plus and Extreme have more than double the headroom 4K60 needs.

Price in Indonesia

Tracking Tokopedia listings with official warranty in early November 2026, the EVO Plus 128GB sells for Rp274,000–485,000 and the Ultra 128GB for Rp249,000–490,000. Per gigabyte the ranges almost fully overlap — you do not pay more for the faster card. One warning: listings at Rp109,990 or even Rp45,000 are far below official-warranty prices and are almost certainly fake cards with rewritten capacity.

Verdict

For most Android users, the Samsung EVO Plus is the better buy than the SanDisk Ultra: faster sustained writes, V30 for 4K60, and A2 for apps, at practically the same price. The only reason to pick SanDisk is to step up to the Extreme, the EVO Plus's true equal — then just buy whichever is cheaper at checkout. Read the full Indonesian comparison, including the price-per-GB math and the fake-card warning, here: https://www.miftahulrizki.eu.org/2026/11/microsd-samsung-vs-sandisk-untuk-hp.html