SanDisk Corporation, which claims to be the world’s largest supplier of flash data storage card products, recently announced the upcoming launch of an 8-gigabyte, High Capacity memory card.

 

The 8GB card can hold more than 4,000 high-resolution pictures or 2,000 digital songs or up to 15 hours of MPEG-4 video. SanDisk is including a MicroMate USB 2.0 reader free with the card, to ensure that users are able to transfer files between their computers and the new device.

 

SanDisk vice president for consumer product marketing, Wes Brewer, explained that the MicroMate is being included because the 8GB card requires SD High Capacity-compatible reader. MicroMate also reads standard SD cards.

 

Susan Park, retail product marketing manager at SanDisk, said in a statement, “As consumers add more digital entertainment and memories to their lives -- especially when they start shooting video with a digital still camera or digital camcorder -- they need more storage capacity in flash memory cards.”

 

She added: “The new 8GB SDHC delivers twice the capacity of what was previously our biggest SD card -- the 4GB SDHC -- introduced just eight months ago.

 

For cards in any SD format larger that 2GB and adhering to the new SD 2.0 specification, SDHC is the new designation. The earlier specifications for SD cards restricted the capacity to 2GB, whereas SDHC supports up to 32GB.

 

The 8GB SDHC card follows the SD Speed Class 2 rating, ensuring a minimum data-transfer rate of 2MB/second.

“More than 30 digital still cameras and digital camcorders from Canon, Casio, Nikon, Panasonic, Pentax and Sanyo are already SDHC-compatible,” noted Brewer. “We expect that SDHC will soon spread to digital music players, mobile phones and other personal electronics, making the 8GB SDHC card a versatile tool for moving around lots of photos, music and video.”

In a March 16 press release, SanDisk said that the new 8GB SDHC card (list price $189.99), bundled with MicroMate USB reader, will hit shelves (U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Africa) in April, with Japan and other areas of Asia receiving shipments during the second quarter of 2007. On its Web site, however, the company lists the SanDisk Ultra II SDHC 8GB High Performance Card as being available in June, with a price of $239.99.

 

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