World's Fastest Flash Memory Card? 311
ResQuad writes "Digital Photography Review has an article about what is claimed as the fastest MMC Memory Flash Card. Not only is this new card 200% faster than any current SD card (rating it at about 22.5MB/s read), its also 2GB. Does anyone need 2GB of memory for their PDA?"
What's interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
i would love 2 GB (Score:4, Interesting)
Having 2 gigs available to store packages, not to mention music and even movies would be fantastic, especially for long trips.
Re:Good News... (or not) (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that's what is holding back adoption of flash based PCs. Screw the expense, if the thing can't have a drive failure, some industries will buy it.
Oh yes, I want it (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't need, but i want it.
Since my Archos broke down, and the "repair shop" "fixed" it -- "fixed" it so it will never work again -- I've been using my Zaurus PDA as an MP3 player.
I can get about six or seven albums*, in MP3 format, on the 512 MB SD card, so the 2 GB would give me room for about 24 albums.
And I see that this new card is faster, which will be nice: getting all those MP3s on the card does take a while.
Any idea how much the 2GB card will retail for?
Slashdot has changed over the years... (Score:1, Interesting)
"The text you have entered was not found."
WTF?! Where is the slashdot I know and love?
lets a smart phone be an iPod free of carriers (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed. I don't want to carry a phone and an iPod because I don't have three ears for two headsets. But I'd happily pay the money to put some decent storage on my next smartphone so I can listen to music on its hands-free headset.
The division between a high-end phone and a smartphone/PDA is becoming one of expandability. My spouse's excellent Sanyo VM 4500 plays sounds, pictures, and videos, but has no expandability: Sprint doesn't support the phone's built-in Java and PC docking capability because they want you to get media by paying them $15 a month. Meanwhile the promising Samsung SPH-i550 [palminfocenter.com] runs PalmOS and has the SD expansion slot and explicit docking. That's what I want.
Another amazing way to get your media on the go is using Rendezvous and Wi-Fi to share it from strangers [theregister.co.uk]. No memory card or phone network required.
Re:Music? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, I'd assume it will play Ogg Vorbis, right?
Audio needs only "fast" (Score:3, Interesting)
Large, fast flash cards like this are good for high-quality (no lossy compression) portable audio recording too.
Even at 24/96 stereo, live audio needs less than 600 KB/s sustained write speed. Recording in 3D Ambisonic surround [ambisonic.net] takes only double that. This page [robgalbraith.com] claims that a CF-compatible Microdrive cartridge can write at over 4 MB/s, so it should have no problem with data rates typical of live audio capture.
You do still have a point about durability [fredmiranda.com] however.
Re:What's interesting... (Score:1, Interesting)
ie, my ancient mp3 player won't talk to a 64Mb card, but my Pioneer CDJ-1000 will quite happily use only 16Mb of it.
Re:Music? (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually play music on my Zaurus (it's mostly ogg), since my computer (though a laptop) is VERY noisy. I only have a 128MB card though, so I make a playlist (using Gjay) every night and have a script copy the files to the card. It works nicely (though the opie media player is buggy, notably it has what is probably a nasty memory leak, and is always killed when I turn the thing back on the next day. Also when it has a problem with a file, it stops instead of just skipping)
Navigation (Score:3, Interesting)
One more use, beside the many already mentioned, would be storing maps for satellite navigation devices such as the many Pocket PC / TomTom combo's, or my Garmin iQue [garmin.com]. 2 GB would allow me store the whole of Europe (at street level, with points of interest) on it.
Re:Music? (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, the ability to shop for music at the local wireless hotspot and then play directly from a device would be sweet, and it's a capability the iPod/iTunes service can't match yet (if it ever will).
Re:Flash Memory (Score:2, Interesting)
In order to resolve this lack of space problem, she carries her laptop with her so she can clear the cards by dropping the pics on the laptop. It's a much cheaper (and safer in my opinion) solution than buying a single large card.
Now that you mention it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, yes, as a matter of fact I do.
I use my PDA (a Zire 71) as a portable music device. I do not like moving parts in standard players when I am also in motion. I'd love to be able to have 2 gig of tunes in my pocket with no hard drive or CD required.
I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, but I need it for my iPOD (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Flash Memory (Score:3, Interesting)
She should get the 40 GB iPod and one of the Belkin accessories that allow you to transfer photos to an iPod without a computer. There's a media reader [belkin.com] and one that connects through USB [belkin.com].
This combination would be much less bulky and awkward than having to lug around a laptop and overall it will save you money that you would normally spend on a ton of flash cards. Not to mention that juggling a laptop and a camera is just asking for something to fall and get damaged. Another benefit is that you can keep 5 MB or so of music on the iPod to use it as a music player and still have plenty of room for photos.
CF is not PDA/DigiCam only. I use it as IDE device (Score:4, Interesting)
No, since I don't have one.
But CF is not a PDA/DigiCam only storage.
I use it as IDE harddisk on generic ATX motherboards for both my media- and lan-server.
For the media-server (512MB Kingston CF) it stores, read-only, all the system and applications. This means, that when I listen to internet-radio, CD, watch a movie (TV or DVD) I do not need to spin up the storage disks. Similar for my 24/ server (also 512MB Kingston), which only spins up the disks, when some action happens (fetchmail, logfile). When I am abroad the system is mostly idle, except for the fetchmail every six hours and my own SSH access.
2Gigs of Memory for my PDA. (Score:2, Interesting)
There is nothing quite so useful as the Sharp Zaurus PDA's, well set up, well configured, and running in your pocket.
Having a complete Linux install, source and all, wherever I go, for any particular practical reason I have it, gives me what I've wanted since the day I unwrapped my first MIPS Magnum pizzabox and plonked it on my desktop: a portable, power Linux workstation.
So yeah, please. I'll be getting a 2GIG SD card for my Zaurus as soon as I can find one locally
In short: Sonic Screwdriver!
Maps for GPS software! (Score:2, Interesting)
2GB = a good start (Score:3, Interesting)
A truly silly question on