22 March 2010

How Much Is Enough?
Sandisk's 32GB MicroSD Cards Are On The Way

One of the best known manufacturer of flash memory card, Sandisk has started making the jump to 32GB capacity with the introduction of its new 32GB MicroSD card, which is the industry-leading capacity and will be the world's largest removable storage capacity for mobile phones.

This increased capacity, coupled with the high performance of the SanDisk Mobile Ultra line, allows consumers to further take advantage of the many storage-intensive features offered by today's portable handsets such as music playback, photo and video camera functions, gaming and GPS applications.

A must-have product for consumers who embody the digital lifestyle, the SanDisk Mobile Ultra high-performance cards are "best of breed" premium cards that provide fast side-loading speeds. This means that users will experience accelerated transfer rates of digital files to and from their mobile memory card and computer.

The development of our third-generation 3-bits-per-cell technology on 32nm within one and a half years after the introduction of the first generation of 3-bits-per-cell on 56nm shows the incredibly fast pace necessary to be a world-class producer in today’s industry. This allows to offer higher capacities at compelling form factors while reducing manufacturing. This new development highlights SanDisk’s deep level of technical expertise and innovation that ultimately benefits consumers.”

"Mobile devices are at the center of our digital world. You can never overestimate the need for more storage," said Avi Greengart, Research Director, Mobile Devices for Current Analysis, an independent market research firm.

"As consumers listen to music, view photos, take and watch videos on their phones, the need for high-capacity removable mobile phone memory cards that can quickly transfer these files increases," said Diana Cartwright, senior director, retail marketing, SanDisk.

As mobile phone cameras offer more megapixels and as new high-definition mobile phone camoders are being introduced, the image sizes and files get bigger, requiring higher card capacity,” said Susan Park, senior product marketing manager for SanDisk Ultra II cards.

“Mobile also are increasingly used for recording video clips, which demand even more memory and capacity. These mega-capacities in our SanDisk Ultra II line give users the worry-free ability to capture thousands of their memories and hours of HiDef video on a single card, while the faster write speed can reduce the time between shots and the faster read speed reduces time spent waiting to copy those images to a computer.”

Most mobile phone press releases already talk about the theoretical maximum memory their handsets can hold, and the release of the new memory card will mean many will start claiming a 64GB memory capacity - as 32GB is the maximum on-board storage capacity released so far.

The new card is expected to start being produced in the second half of 2009, so if you haven't digitised your entire music and movie collection, perhaps you better get cracking.