Sony announces CompactFlash cards as hell freezes over

Sony just announced support for yet another new memory card format today -- fortunately, it's only new to them. Available later "this Spring," Sony will introduce their first CompactFlash memory card. A move foreshadowed by Sony's entry into the high-end, consumer digital camera business with their alpha α100 -- a DSLR lacking direct support for Sony's Memory Stick. The new Type I CF cards will share the same α branding and will hit 66x and 133x transfer speeds with capacities between 1GB and 4GB. So, does this signal the end of their proprietary Memory Stick format? You wish.

[Via Photography Blog]

[Smeagol @ Jan 16th 2007 9:15AM]

They've had Sony branded microdrives for a few years now.

[Mischa Lockton @ Jan 16th 2007 9:42AM]

lol Memory sticks and other proprietary "standards" drive me up the wall. Sony is the king of such annoyances. I.e. unique power connectors etc- can't get a standard from Radio Shack, gotta go right to Sony.


glad we can see Sony yet again show flexibility. I wonder what will happen with BluRayTaMax

[Liam McNulty @ Jan 16th 2007 9:54AM]

I don't wish. Memory Stick Duo is a subset of the Memory Stick PRO format, and both have been around for years. Thanks to the PSP, MS Duo is now available for prices comparable, or even lower than, SD cards with equal capacities.

We don't need to get into comparing dimensions of CF cards, Memory Stick, and SD. The dimensions are such that CF isn't an acceptable solution in many cases; the cards are simply too big.

And SD? You mean SD, whose maximum capacity is 2GB? Please. Only with the very recent (and still hard to find) introduction of SDHC was the 2GB barrier broken for the format. MS Pro, the standard itself, goes up to 32GB without the need for hardware changes. And that was finalized in 2003. Look closely at PSP firmware update 2.81 and you'll notice "added support for Memory Sticks larger than 4GB." Gee whiz, I wonder how that happened. Even when Sony introduced Memory Stick "HG" the maximum capacity wasn't increased because it didn't need to be. Look at their press release: the only thing improved upon by "HG" is the transfer speeds. HG cards can even be used in standard MS Duo devices, albeit at lower transfer speeds.

SD simply didn't move quickly enough for Sony. It didn't even exist when they created Memory Stick in the first place -- their only options at the time were CompactFlash, MMC, and a few other random formats that have all died.

[Christian Fredrickson @ Jan 16th 2007 10:03AM]

No pro user in his right mind would use anything but CF. It is MUCH faster and cheaper then all other formats.
Using Common memory makes products better in the long run.
I personally will not buy a product that supports memory stick or XDA when their are many great products that support SD and CF.

[Matt @ Jan 16th 2007 10:10AM]

Of course its cheaper, the only goddamn things it works with are Sony products! Imagine that!

[nemi @ Jan 16th 2007 1:45PM]

SD's limit is 4Gb, not 2Gb. Any 2 Gb resrictiosn with SD is the fault of the devices software (cammera , PDA) not the memory card. I just bough a cheap no name 4Gb SD card (for $40 after rebate) and it works just fine in my 2 year old Dell Axim PDA thank you.

[G. Snyder @ Jan 16th 2007 10:07AM]

Ummm....you all are reading too much into this. Compact Flash will not replace memory stick or SD or any of the smaller media. It is just too big. This is likely driven by Sony's entry into the D-SLR market and the desire to reap some of the benefit by having Sony branded memory. Most D-SLR owners favor Compact Flash and cameras using SD are considered amateur. I might add that the Sony Alpha is pretty much the Minolta Maxxum D-DSLR. If it were not for that fact alone, one might wonder if Sony would not have saddled it with some bizzaro memory format.

[Mark @ Jan 16th 2007 10:27AM]

Or could it be that the only reason the camera will use CF is because it was designed by Konica Minolta before Sony bought out their camera business....?

[primetime4 @ Jan 16th 2007 11:19AM]

This is exactly correct. The support for CF is from Sony's buyout of Konica-Minolta. Not wanting to alienate current users, they continued the CF support for the Alpha but ship the camera with a Memory Stick -CF adapter.

[Carlos @ Jan 16th 2007 10:29AM]

I hope Sony does switch. I've boycotted Sony for two years ever since we had a problem with memory stick compatability- as in they didn't say which memory stick was compatable with my camera, and the one I bought wasn't compatable. Turns out, I found a list of compatable and non-compatable sticks online, though there was nothing on Sony's site. I truly believe Sony is evil, or at least greedy as hell, as they want to rip everyone off with cards that aren't compatable, explosive batteries, and If there's any justice in this world, Sony will go bankrupt and cease to exist. Its a shame- I used to be a very loyal customer.

[Mr. B @ Jan 16th 2007 10:39AM]

This definately isn't news, as the first comment points out. I remember Sony CF cards when they introduced the F828, which may have been their first CF camera.

On the subject of MemoryStick, i'd just like to chime in and say i'm fond of this format, in spite of the proprietary nature. The 32GB ceiling and long form factor are quite nice.

[Castle @ Jan 16th 2007 11:02AM]

Do your homework Engadget, Sony has ALWAYS supported CF. Their higher end cameras, camcorders have always had CF slots and there have been Sony branded CF for ages. Hell even the PS3 has CF slots.

[Andy @ Jan 16th 2007 11:34AM]

Microdrives are not the same as CF cards. They have CF form-factor, but they are hard-drives. Especially nowadays, microdrives are small hard drives, and as such don't have much of an advantage, with the prices of solid-state going down. The advantage of microdrives is not even larger sizes anymore, since 8 GB CF cards are readily available. It is price, but that is not much of a difference either, especially when buying 1-2GB cards.

About Sony, I have bitter feelings toward this stupid memory stick thing since their first memory stick only maxed out at 128 MB and screwed a friend of mine who bought an incompatible camera (which Sony kept selling after the announcing of MS Pro). I haven't bought anything memory stick-friendly since.

Come to think of it, I haven't bought anything Sony since the PS2 except for some crappy headphones. Most consumer-level (not ultra-expensive) Sony stuff doesn't have the quality edge anymore to demand the higher prices they usually sell at.

[Foof @ Jan 16th 2007 12:03PM]

Actually, I think "compact flash" (despite the name) nowadays refers more to the form factor rather than the specific medium the data is stored on, so those Sony/Hitachi/Seagate microdrives are indeed CF cards. But as you said, microdrives are pretty much dead now. I've still got one in my D70 though, and I'll keep it until it gives up the ghost (they're sturdier than most people believe).

[Diddle @ Jan 16th 2007 11:41AM]

It's about time they pulled their collective heads out of their asses. I loathe the "stick".

[Chris L. @ Jan 16th 2007 12:35PM]

Why put picture of Canon pro1?

[kynetx @ Jan 16th 2007 12:46PM]

My F-828 that I bought about 3 years ago uses CF. This is not one of the signs of the apocalypse. Now you can buy Sony CF. Big deal. Consumer-level cameras are sticking with MS Pro.

[Vagrant @ Jan 16th 2007 2:54PM]

I have the F828 along with huge amounts of memory for it. One of the selling points was that it did take CF and the MicroDrive. I've got several CF cards and one 4GB drive. I have memory sticks as well, all flavors, but I have various other Sony gear too. (Yeah, I drank the punch)

I actually purchased one of Sony's first digital cameras, Mavica FD7, almost 10 years ago, but it used well known media...the Floppy Disk.
;)

[PreGHz @ Jan 16th 2007 3:57PM]

I seriously don't understand the hatred for the Memory Stick.

It's good tech. You don't think that there is licensing with other card formats?

[gecko85 @ Jan 16th 2007 4:38PM]

Sony bought the DSLR business from Konica-Minolta. Their DSLR is basically a re-branded Konica-Minolta...which used CF cards.

(BTW, the KM DSLR's were very good. Now that they carry the Sony name, perhaps they'll get their due. The built-in hardware image stabilization is awesome.)

[nicleT @ Jan 16th 2007 5:34PM]

Compact Flash sucks!
Viva SD card!

[Drew @ Jan 16th 2007 9:07PM]

Sony is really beginning to irritate me. Hopefully they won't keep doing this. I already have my PSP and my camera using MS Duos and I really don't feel like having to deal with yet one more kind of memory card. Even though I hate MS duos, I already own a few of them and use them for enough devices, it makes it just that more annoying that they are THINKING of changing formats.

[Arbee26 @ Jan 17th 2007 6:14AM]

@Drew, I don't think Sony is planning on changing formats at all. I think they just plan on making their own branded CF cards in addition to all their other Sony branded memory stick products.

I think the prices of memorysticks are now comparable to other media formats like SD, especially on eBay. The price was my only gripe with memorysticks but now that I can get them at reasonable prices, I don't have any issues with using it. To me, it's just a storage medium and I couldn't give a toot what format it's in.

[AG @ Jan 16th 2007 9:38PM]

Am I the only one that notices that the above card is a SanDisk card and not a Sony CF Card?

[anthony mesias @ Jan 16th 2007 11:22PM]

yes you are, while the rest of us notice that engadget took the sandisk and photoshop the sony alpha logo.