Sony Reveals SD Cards (R.I.P. Memory Stick?)
Could Sony finally be conforming to a more popular standard?
If you've ever owned Sony electronics, you'll know that your device isn't fit for any mere SD card standard. Instead, you'll have to stay within the family and use Memory Stick Pro Duo to save your games, movies, music and pictures. That may all be changing, however, as Sony appears to finally be relenting by releasing its own brand of SD memory flash cards.
Sony Electronics announced it is expanding its line of consumer media with the addition of five new SD/SDHC memory cards for digital imaging products, and three new microSD/microSDHC memory cards for mobile phones. The new SD/SDHC and microSD/microSDHC memory cards, except for the microSD 2GB card, are all class-4-speed for high-definition recording.
Does this spell the death for Memory Stick products? Not yet, apparently, as Sony said that new cards will simply "complement" the existing Memory Stick products.
"The new cards will complement Sony’s existing Memory Stick line, satisfying the needs of a broader range of users, and strengthening Sony’s position as a full line media supplier," said Shane Higby, director of the consumer media business at Sony Electronics.
The full line of SD/SDHC and microSD/microSDHC memory cards, which will ship in packaging that is easy to separate and recycle, will be available this month, at the following suggested list prices:
- SF-2N1 2GB SD Class 4 $14.99
- SF-4N4 4GB SDHC Class 4 $29.99
- SF-8N4 8GB SDHC Class 4 $44.99
- SF-16N4 16GB SDHC Class 4 $79.99
- SF-32N4 32GB SDHC Class 4 $159.99
- SR-2A1 2GB microSD with adapter $14.99
- SR-4A4 4GB microSDHC Class 4 with adapter $29.99
- SR-8A4 8GB micro SDHC Class 4 with adapter $44.99
Nah Sony will still require them in current and near future devices. Then (hopefully) they will slowly phase out the memory sticks.
Also, no class 6? Tsk tsk.
I'm in almost the same situation. I have an upper end Olympus point 'n shoot. I like everything about it except the xD flash memory that no one else but Fuji apparently uses.
Sony actually makes some great hardware.
However, they are quite full of themselves. (Let us use the full potential of our damned PSP's already!)
Too many vairants.
memory stick duo, pro duo, micro, SD card and the dozen others etc.
Give us a damned standard already!
For storage mediums, yes, Sony has a bad track record. Their hardware is still good though. I don't think Blu-Ray will be another betamax but I think Sony's going to find that DD will take over sooner than they expected.
IMO they're going to see two years of growth followed by rapid decline in physical disk sales. Much like iTunes did to the CD, DVD's and Blu-Ray sales are going to tank.
Their proprietary software for putting music on the device sucks. Horribly. This is pretty much the universal opinion. And putting mp3s on it was convoluted and lossy (had to convert from mp3 to Sony's format, THEN load it onto a MD...). Then there's no support in my non-Windows laptop, which can rip CDs just fine thanks. Finally, MP3 players with flash storage just got cheap enough that I didn't have to put up with Sony's bullshit anymore.
Thing is, if they had let the system open up a bit I might still be using it. Sony needs to quit shooting themselves in the foot trying to tie everything to their own formats.
Saying "we kill memory sticks" would anger most loyal customers, who might have invested money into memory sticks.
But yeah, I noticed on some of SONYs new cell phones from last week... SD! It bugged me to spend about twice for the micro-sized MS (M2)card to fit my Sony Phone. Okay, $30 for 4GB back then.
Guess SONY got smart.
1 - Sell ONLY Memory stick to only SONY products and make people grumble. or...
2 - Sell SONY brand SD cards to anyone who wants one? Hmmmmm.