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Home » Portable Audio

Full Page Wall Street Journal Ad – SanDisk 16GB MicroSDHC

Posted by Rich Bilancia on October 7, 2008 – 3:23 pm  Share
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DSCN0907 editedToday’s Wall Street Journal contains a full page ad announcing the SanDisk 16GB MicroSDHC card.  The ad caught my attention because the top half shows only an actual size microSD card with the following caption in red ink: “innovating the impossible.”  The bottom half of the page contains the following:

“From the inventor of flash memory cards comes the first and only 16GB memory card for mobile phones.

“With room for up to 7 hours of video + 2,000 songs + 1,200 photos, the 16GB SanDisk card is compatible with millions of mobile phones worldwide and works seamlessly with microSD-enabled MP3 players, digital cameras, personal computers, new car and home entertainment systems, and other devices consumers already own.  Available at local electronics and mobile retailers, the 16GB card is revolutionizing the way consumers are.able to use their phones.

“‘Handsets have become far more than just phones-they’ve become mobile jukeboxes,
mobile offices, ,even mobile movie theaters. Flash memory cards have increased in
storage capacity, but even an 8GBcard may be too small for anyone with GPS map data,
a few movies, a game or two, a presentation file and other applications. There is an
acute need for more mobile storage capacity. 16GB gives consumers the ability to carry
their digital content with them and still have room to do more with their mobile phones.’
–Avi Greengart, Research Director for Mobile Devices at Current Analysis.

“It’s another industry-changing innovation from the company that pioneered the digital film market and sells more flash memory cards than anyone else in the world.”

What I find personally intriguing is the coincident comment from Woz that, “The iPod has sort of lived a long life at number one. Things like, that if you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, they kind of die out after a while. It’s kind of like everyone has got one or two or three. You get to a point when they are on display everywhere, they get real cheap and they are not selling as much.”

If Microsoft delivers on their recent hint to put the Zune player software on Windows Mobile and you can then add 16GB of memory to your Windows Mobile phone, does the iPod fade away?

What do you think?

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Rich Bilancia (23 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Rich, a former IT executive and managerial accountant, is enjoying retirement in northern Colorado. He remains an active civic volunteer and a passionate technologist.


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  • Pony99CA
    SD will handle a plain SD card (I believe up to 2G but I have heard of some 4G SD cards. never actualy seen one and if they exist, they are either rare or bogus).

    They're definitely not bogus. When the original Motorola Q came out, it had a MiniSD slot that didn't support SDHC. However, there were people who got 4 GB MiniSD cards that worked.

    I believe the trick was that they didn't quite conform to the older SD standard. They tweaked things a bit so that the storage could be used. It was definitely buyer beware with them, though. Wikipedia has a decent article about SD storage sizes.

    Steve
  • Kevin Bacon
    Thank you Pony99CA and Zealot, I did some further investigation based on your comments and found that the hardware for my i760 supports SDHC but not the original phone software. The verizon-samsung Windows Mobile 6.1 update addressed this software issue. Looks like I'm good to go!
  • Zealot
    I believe Steve is right, a phone can have SD or SDHC enabled. SD will handle a plain SD card (I believe up to 2G but I have heard of some 4G SD cards. never actualy seen one and if they exist, they are either rare or bogus).
    SDHC will handle any plain SD card or SDHC card. SDHC goes up to 32G theoretically and the size doesn't matter. If you can use one SDHC you can use em all.

    Z
  • Pony99CA
    @Kevin Bacon (yeah, right):

    Although this is great news, I am concerned that my current phone may not recognize or be able to utilize 100% of such a large MicroSD card. The phone in question is a Samsung i760 purchased earlier this year. My understanding is that phone manufacturers did not anticipate such large capacity storage to become available during the life of the phone, and that the hardware required to maximize this storage was not included to reduce production costs. Any insights on this matter?

    As far as I know, if they implemented SDHC, it should work with up to 32 GB cards. If they just implemented the old SD standard, you'll probably be limited to 2 GB (and no SDHC cards will work).

    Can you use SDHC cards now?

    Steve
  • Zealot
    One to Four Gig MP3 players are now ubiquitous and can be found dirt cheap made by thousands of no-name knockoff merchants. On top of that, just about every tech vendor with a brandable name has OEMed an MP3 player or two into the market.

    iPods still rule because it is not about the music anymore, but the "lifestyle". Steve Jobs has proven he may be the greatest marketeer of his age (or the new PT Barnum) by convincing millions of people that carrying a certain brand of MP3 player (or phone for that matter) will make them cooler, more popular, and appear to "get it" regarding technology.

    Sure a phone with a large enough SD card can play music just as well as most iPods...but you just won't look as hip doing it. Lots of people will pay a premium price to looks "cool" painlessly. Think of iPods as the spray-on tan of the gadget world.

    That said, I do own an iPod Touch and love it...but I use it as a games machine and an eBook, with a couple movies and some video of my son along for the ride. I only have one album on there. For music, I use my 80G Zune 2. I much prefer the software experience I get from Zune over iTunes, I like the feel and sound quality of the device...and I prefer the statement carrying a Zune makes.

    MS Rebels RULE.

    Z
  • Pony99CA
    Although I think Woz is right, it took years for transistor radios and later Walkmans to become a generic commodity.

    Remember that the iPod is just one type of Digital Audio Player (DAP). Apple didn't invent them (I think Diamond did) like Sony invented the Walkman.

    Also, DAPs are commodities now. I recall seeing a gift card at Target, and the card doubled as a free MP3 player. You bought the card for say $25 and it was good for $25 in purchases, but the card was also a 64 MB (I think) DAP. That's about as commodity as you get. :D

    Granted, it's not GB of space, but the music industry's SlotMusic initiative is basically selling DRM-free, high-quality MP3s on a 1 GB MicroSD card for $7-$10, I think. So memory cards are also becoming commodities.

    As anecdotal evidence, I just bought a 2 GB Kingston MicroSD card for $5.99 -- and that was supposedly the shipping and handling charge; the card itself was "free". Last night, I saw a Transcend 8 GB SDHC card being sold for $9.99 (plus whatever S&H was).

    So, at the low end at least, I think DAPs and the necessary storage are commodity items.

    Plus, I think 16 GB in a MicroSD card is as much or more than last generation's iPod Nanos or Touches, right? It's a lot more than the first generation iPod.

    The only real obstacle, for that storage range, is iTunes and DRM. For people who need more than 16-32 GB, though, I think the higher end iPods and Zunes are safe -- for a little while.

    Steve
  • btate0121
    I think the reason why the walkman and discman went obsolete is because of the extremely limited functionality! no matter how many different versions of "bass boost" and "anti skip" technology they came out with.. they all did the same thing... play cd's or tapes. the ipod is a far different beast. It's my step dad's component stereo/surround sound system on steroids. Don't get me wrong.. i don't currently have an ipod.. and have decided that my current tech is enough to do what i want (seriously.. i bought 2 psp games.. ever.. the rest was old nintendo roms... i used it more for mp3's than anything else). i picked up a celio and i'm trying to see if the tilt can do the same job my laptop does (to a lesser degree obviously). basically i stream my music or mp3's to my BT headphones everyday and do spreadsheets.. at home.. i use my tilt to stream my music to my bt headphones while cruisin the web and blogging. bam.

    gotta give it to apple though. all they do is refresh the line every 6 months and add half of a new feature while making it look prettier and the world goes bananas. LOL. the ipod isn't going anywhere unless someone else learns to do it better and brings along a killer app, or we run out of tech innovation. with that said...

    i love my wm device and will be happy using that instead.... it's just not as pretty.
  • frankenbike
    Although I think Woz is right, it took years for transistor radios and later Walkmans to become a generic commodity.

    For now, there's a fanatically dedicated community which is vested in the whole iTunes vertical structure.

    You'll know the end is near for the iPod's run when the successful lawsuits against Apple's DRM are launched and decisions striking down Apple's hegemony are struck down.

    Currently, the vested iPod fans often have vastly more invested in the songs they bought through iTunes than the cost of the players themselves, and will continue buying iPods rather than throw that money down the drain or burn hundreds or thousands of songs to CD to transfer the songs to non-Apple players.

    --
    FB
  • Pony99CA
    Oh yeah. I wonder how much that ad cost. Maybe just giving subscribers the card would have been cheaper. :D

    Steve
  • Pony99CA
    I've never really felt the need for an iPod. I've got all of the music I've ripped on an 8 GB MicroSD card in my Q9m. If I ever rip my entire CD collection, I'll probably need more than 16 GB, though (and I don't rip videos at all).

    I bought my daughter an LG Voyager based on her promise to try it as a music player to avoid having to buy her both a phone and an iPod Nano. Unfortunately, she didn't even try it as far as I know and her mom bought her a Nano. :( (Maybe I should bill her the $300-400 I paid. That would teach her. :D)

    Regarding accessories, there are plenty of accessories for Windows Mobile and Bluetooth devices, so unless there's some very specialized accessory that you must have, I don't think accessories will be the limiting factor.

    More important, I think, will be Apple's DRM. As long as the iPod is the only player that can play iTunes DRM music, the iPod is safe -- at least until people realize they don't need iTunes.

    Steve
  • btate0121
    naaaaah. I don't think a cell phone or zune with any amount of storage could run the ipod off. it's less about the storage and more about what's available. the accessories, the app/music/video store, most of your peers have one, the interface (shudder at the tilt in comparison.. i LOVE my tilt though), features.

    it's very hard to topple the giant ipod... think about it.. what player is even close? I've recently battled my own techlust on whether or not to get a ipod touch after my psp dropped and lost sound (and wifi.. sigh). it still plays games.. just no sound... soooo.. ipod touch or replacement psp? or just trek it out with my wm devide and my stereo bt headphones? i picked up a bigger micro sd this weekend and i'm giving my tilt a try... it's not so bad... except i can't play my music in my car anymore until i pick up an adapter.. and the one i like is about $120.... that psp is looking good. LOL.
  • Kevin Bacon
    Although this is great news, I am concerned that my current phone may not recognize or be able to utilize 100% of such a large MicroSD card. The phone in question is a Samsung i760 purchased earlier this year. My understanding is that phone manufacturers did not anticipate such large capacity storage to become available during the life of the phone, and that the hardware required to maximize this storage was not included to reduce production costs. Any insights on this matter?
  • Sure, a 16gb phone expansion is amazing. My first PC had a 120mb (0.12 GB) hard drive and I never felt pinched for memory at the time.
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