SDHC

It's flash card season at CES (especially given the shutterbug boost by the conjoined Photo Marketing Association show), and SanDisk has a contribution with high-capacity mid-range SDXC cards.

The two SanDisk Extreme models, 64GB and 128GB, can transfer data at 45MBps. That's less than half the speed of the company's top-end Extreme Pro line of SD cards at 95MBps, but it should be good enough for many photographers and videographers.

The high capacity comes with a price premium--prices for the cards are $200 and $400--but could be useful for those shooting lots of video or traveling away … Read more

Lexar announced a gaggle of new SD memory cards at CES today, with 400X and 600X data-transfer speeds to keep up with professionals' needs higher resolution videos and photos.

The SDHC and SDXC cards use the UHS-I interface for faster transfer speeds (SDXC is a newer version of the SD standard that extends to higher memory capacities.) Most of them will arrive in February, but Lexar is particularly chuffed about a 400X 128GB SDXC card due in April that the company boasts will be the first at that capacity using UHS-I.

For those who prefer absolutes, 400X translates to 60MBps … Read more

I'll just come right out and say it: Eye-Fi cards are overpriced. They're incredibly convenient, no doubt about it, and I'll never use another camera without one, but the prices are just outta whack.

Today, they're a little less whacky. While supplies last, Sellout.woot has the refurbished 8GB Eye-Fi ProX2 SDHC Wi-Fi memory card for $49.99, plus $5 for shipping. Regular price: $99.99.

Crazy, right? You can buy a regular 8GB memory card for as little as $12, so who in their right mind would pay $100? Even $50 seems steep, but allow … Read more

I continue to be fan of Eye-Fi memory cards, which wirelessly beam photos from your digital camera to your PC and/or an online service like Flickr or Facebook.

I'm not, however, a fan of their high prices. Dropping a hundred bucks on a 4GB SD card--even one with built-in Wi-Fi--is not my idea of a good deal.

Here's a better one: Today only, Best Buy outlet store Cowboom has the 4GB Eye-Fi Explore Video SD card for $29.99, plus $5 for shipping. (You may also be on the hook for sales tax.) This same card lists … Read more

One of the things I like best about Android-based smartphones (even lower-end, no-contract models like the Samsung Intercept) is their expandability. Most can accommodate microSDHC storage cards of up to 32GB. You could have one for music, another for movies, a third for documents, and so on. Take that, iPhone!

Alas, 32GB cards are extremely pricey; the sweet spot right now is 16GB. Of course, just how sweet depends on where you shop. Walk into your local Best Buy (or similar big-box store) and you could easily pay upwards of $60 for that kind of storage.

Take it from me: … Read more

BERLIN--The SD Card Association is working on a revision to its widely used flash memory card technology that should nearly triple the data-transfer speeds of mainstream SDHC and larger-capacity SDXC cards.

The specification should be complete in the first quarter of 2011, with products coming about a year afterward, said Akihiro Kasahara, a member of the association's marketing committee, in an interview at the IFA electronics show here.

Today's SD cards have data-transfer buses with a maximum speed of 104MB per second, though actual read and write speeds are somewhat slower. The new specification, just called SD 4.0 for now, will increase that to 300MB/sec, said Kevin Schader, the association's director of communications.

Faster data-transfer speeds aren't necessary for everyone, but newer uses make them important. Flash cards are functioning more like solid-state drives in modern gadgets such as Android smartphones and now tablets, too. High-definition videocameras or video SLRs have a tremendous appetite for data. Writing to a card faster frees cameras up for the next shot or take sooner, and of course means it can be faster for people to transfer files to their computers once those support the higher speeds as well. … Read more

I've always liked the Eye-Fi memory cards, which wirelessly beam photos from your digital camera to your PC and/or an online service like Flickr or Facebook. But I always thought they were way, way overpriced.

Not anymore. Buy.com has the 4GB Eye-Fi Share Video SD card for $34.99 shipped--far and away the lowest price I've seen. (Current price on the Eye-Fi site: $64.)

In case you're not familiar with it, the Eye-Fi is a standard-size SDHC memory card (meaning it's compatible with most cameras) with a built-in Wi-Fi radio.

When it's … Read more

Signifying the gradual spread of a new generation of memory card technology for cameras and videocameras, Transcend on Tuesday announced its first SDXC card, a 64GB Class 10 model.

The Secure Digital memory card family has a relatively long and prosperous lineage. Its second generation to today's prevailing SDHC incarnation comes with capacities of up to 32GB, but SDXC (Extended Capacity) starts there and goes to 2TB, offering faster data transfer speeds, too.

Transcend didn't announce availability or a price, but don't expect it to be cheap. SanDisk's slower 64GB Class 4 SDXC card costs about $220 right now, and Panasonic's 64GB Class 10 SDXC card costs about $500.

Another Transcend competitor for cost-conscious buyers, Kingston, announced its 64GB SDXC card earlier this month with a $500 price tag, too. Expect prices to drop gradually as more SDXC cards and more products that use SDXC arrive on the market. … Read more

While the big Eye-Fi news this year was the company's move to SDHC and 802.11n Wi-Fi with its new Pro X2 card at CES in January, Eye-Fi now follows up by bringing its Explore and Connect cards into the X2 age, along with an expansion of its free hot-spot network.

Eye-Fi had a relationship with Wayport before it was engulfed by AT&T, and it seems to have taken a long time before AT&T's Wi-Fi network could get added to Eye-Fi's locations. It's finally happened, however, giving Explore and Pro users access … Read more