Bigger & Faster Portable Storage

You avid digital photographers who take lots of pictures/video clips with your camera must appreciate a large storage card for your camera. I know I do. My camera goes where I go, and so does my PlayStation Portable (PSP). They actually share the same Memory Stick PRO Duo. The problem is sometimes I’m too lazy to offload my pictures/videos onto my computer, which makes my card full and I can’t take any more pictures or save any more games.

Running out of is space is a problem no more since SanDisk introduced the 4-gigabyte (GB) Memory Stick PRO Duo, its newest and biggest storage card to hit the market. This little thing can store up to 64 hours of your music (mp3 format), 20 or more hours of movies/videos/film trailers, 4,000 of your pictures or 12 hours of game saves. Pretty wild huh? It seems not too long ago the 32-megabyte (MB) card was top-of-the-line, now we have this crazy 4GB one that’s still just a little bigger than your thumbnail.

Since the PSP has no internal memory, it’s important for me to have the freedom of ample storage to play my games, movies and view pictures. On my camera, it’s nice to have the extra space, especially for videos. This new 4GB stick gives me that option without having to worry about dumping my pictures/videos onto my computer right away. Expect to see the 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo on store shelves very soon for about $220. If that’s too big for you, other capacities of the Memory Stick PRO Duo include the 256MB for $35, 512MB for $45, 1GB for $60 or the 2GB for $110.

For those of you that prefer speed over space, SanDisk’s Rapid GX Memory Stick Pro Duo (1GB) is for you. It is optimized to achieve maximum transfer speeds, and is up to three times faster than a standard PRO Duo card. Furthermore, the included (for a limited time) MicroMate high-speed reader allows you to transfer data at read/write speeds to your PSP at about 15MB per second. That’s about two times faster if your PSP were hooked up to your computer directly. You’ll see the Rapid GX soon for about $85 (only 1GB available for now).

Also adding speed to your storage is the SanDisk Ultra II Mobile line of flash memory cards, made especially for your mobile phone. These cards have a minimum write speed of 9MB/second and a minimum read speed of 10MB/second. They may also reduce the energy consumption on the batteries of certain phones and will be compatible with future models. If you like that speed boost when transferring music/videos/data back and forth to your computer, then you should try this. The new line only comes in higher capacities, 1GB, 2GB or 4GB (prices range from $90 to $359).

For more information on SanDisk products visit www.sandisk.com.