ExpressCard 2.0 standard finally finalized, faster than ever
By Donald Melanson 
posted June 9th 2009 2:09PM
posted June 9th 2009 2:09PM
A final spec has been promised for over a year now, but the PCMCIA folks have just now finally settled on the long-awaited ExpressCard 2.0 standard which, among other things, incorporates the new SuperSpeed USB spec to allow for faster transfer rates. In real world use, that should translate to transfer rates up to 5Gbps, or roughly 10 times faster than the previous ExpressCard 1.2 standard. Otherwise, you can naturally expect full backwards compatibility with existing ExpressCards and, as PCMCIA hopes, even more products using the format in the future now that it has all that extra bandwidth, although it seems Apple didn't get that memo.
I think Apple's discontinuation of the ExpressCard slot across most of the line was stupid.
From the consumer point of view, I can do a lot more with an ExpressCard then I can with an SD card slot (including read SD cards). If I were Apple I'd have made it advantageous to use the ExpressCard slot, releasing some of my own ExpressCard peripherals (such as an Apple SD Card Reader).
agreed
that and their incomprehensible fear of blu-ray
I don't necessarily Agree or Disagree with the lack of Blu-Ray. The simple fact of the matter is that I don't particularly care. It doesn't affect me either way. Apple wants to push the iTMS then by all means go ahead, I get my movies elsewhere anyway and Blu-Ray still isn't economically feasible for me, a college student.
I'm a huge Apple fanboy, and I'm going to have to agree. I HAVE an SD card reader, for my old macbook. It's usb, so I can use it on any computer.
I'd far prefer an express card slot, which can be used for SO much more.
Shame on Apple. First, you got rid of Firewire 400, which I use for my external HDD, now this?
You dropped express cards just a bit too early. I hope they fix it soon, as I was planning to get a MacBook pro before I graduate next year, but without the express card... I'm not too certain.
I don't think Expresscard is needed. But Apple should be including at least a Blu-Ray OPTION by now. I think it's lame that they haven't.
You would think the opportunity to sell Apple branded accessories would have had them all over the ExpressCard slot. However what real accessory would they sell, TV Tuner?
I fail to see your arguments. I remember some time back everyone complained that every Sony and what not had an SD card reader. Now they add it and everyone complains even more.
On the Bluray issue; it won't happen. Never. Apple is mainly about profits. Adding Bluray would screw their profits from the iTunes store. Plus, Bluray is not gonna catch on the way DVD did. Many people want it to, but I think Bluray is too late to the game in terms of disks. Had it come a couple years earlier, then it would have been awesome. But soon we will be downloading full HD movies online etc. (well some are already...)
Also, bluray support will require the same top-to-bottom reengineering of OS X that Microsoft had to do with Vista to get it blessed by the MPAA.
*** First off all, this post is incorrect. God you guys really need to get some competent writers! The current 1.0 Expresscard standard supports up to 2.5Gbps in PCIe mode. The 480mbps is solely for USB2 mode. ****
Anyways, it was a boneheaded move for Apple to not add expresscards to the entire line.
1) How do people get mobile broadband? A stupid USB dongle hanging off their computer? No thanks!
2) although the inclusion of FW800 on the 13" helped with the problem of external drives, how are you supposed to add eSATA support now?
3) Similarly, new technical standards like USB3, Firewire 3200, 10 GigE, 802.11??, will be coming out over the next few years. How are you
supposed to upgrade your laptop to support these without an expresscard slot? Oh yeah, I guess Apple wants you to buy a new one in a year.
4) There are also many niche uses of Expresscard for professional users. A lot of scientific equipment, data collection, industrial control stuff, pro audio/video stuff, etc hook up via expresscard. Additionally, there are PCI -> expresscard adapters that allow you to place a desktop PCI card into an external housing and connect it to a laptop.
5) Who knows what other kinds of new products will come out that use the expresscard. I'm sick of average consumers always using USB for everything! It only discourages the creation of new Expresscard products..
"incomprehensible fear of blu-ray"
Even though they are on the BoDs, to Apple,
Blu-ray => SONY => The AntiChrist.
Blu-ray blank media is currently less than $5/25GB and a lot more feasible than CD, DVD, HD/SSD for backing up and sharing data such as home video. Also the quality is impeccable, far surpassing digitally distributed content both aurally and visually. Plus they contain a lot more content, obviously.
you realized why they did it? Firewire800 is obsolete by the end of the year with the Full Introduction of firewire1600/3200 and a macbook that you can't get an add on card for...well hum-dee-dum apple gives its loyal sheep a new reason to upgrade after only a year.
How many people actually need anything faster, or has anything compatible with anything beyond Firewire 800 now? It'll be years before anyone "needs" Firewire 1600/3200. By then, it'll be upgrade time anyway.
Personally speaking, all my ExpressCard slot does today is read SD cards (not SDHC, with the current card) so its removal probably won't have much impact. However, I suspect that the SD reader in the new MacBooks is connecting to the computer via bloody USB 2.0 and so will be slower than an ExpressCard solution. The change will loose me flexibility but it is flexibility that I have my doubts I would use (and haven't done so for the past 3-years).
So I guess that's a "Meh..." overall.
i have a macbook pro and have not used the express card slot. I like having it(just in case), but if i could have saved $300 on my laptop, i would have chosen that over express cards anyways. Saving on the licensing and hardware is huge. Besides most of the things you can do with express, you can do with USB or FW.
I've got 2 MacBook Pros. I use the ExpressCard slot on both of them... for an SD reader.
@loosely_coupled [and the rest of *experts* who clearly do not use a mac]
Apple DIDNOT remove the express card slot from the entire line. The 17" still has it! Also as it was said in the keynote, only 5% of all MacbookPro users use the slot. Considering that it is a small market 5% is close to nothing. And those people can still continue to use their existing hardware and when they want to upgrade to a new MBP they will simply have to get a 17" one. Sure it's more expensive but did you really think anyone buys a Mac to save money? I personally don't want to move up the product line and up my cost but it's not anything to cry about.
As far as upgrades go, Apple has always integrated the current state of technology and not what might come next. Sure they can include a slot for 3g sim card but there are problems with who the partner would be and after the whole AT&T story you can bet that the last thing Apple will do is tie their lineup with a cellphone carrier. And maybe you didn't get the point about the build in battery but the new battery needs every bit of extra space that it can get and keeping a slot that hardly anyone uses is actually a problem. They might bring it back in the next revision provided that enough people complain ( like FW in the 13" ). However, knowing how little people use the slot I wouldn't hold my breath.
I've never seen anyone use and express card. Maybe if you could actually buy them without taking out a second mortgage they would have been more popular.
Well then they should have been hugely popular in the US.
A 32GB ExpressCard SSD, which is only about $100, is a good use of the slot.
A 32GB SD card, which is only about $100, is a good use of the SD slot.
You lose. Good day, sir!
@ crawdad689, weren't we talking about the validity of the slot and not the filler? Now I know I mentioned memory and that is probably why you did but you can not put a TV tuner into a SD card slot.
USB Tuner. next?
@ Joseph, a USB tuner is a dongle. Few like things dangling from their computers. expresscards go inside, snuggly.
I don't think there really still is a broad consumer demand for PC-Cards and I currently have a hard time making up a business case. Netbooks are too small, HDDs already generous enough and USB periphery just so cheap and readily available.
Special industrial applications, military too, those are applications i've seen but other than this....? And speed has never really been an issue with those.
I've never used one, and I do use sd cards a lot more. But then again, I also have a usb card reader, which can do sd and more.
I would have liked the idea of more expandability, especially when the MacBook gets older, and that may be the only way to expand upon it, but I don't think it will hold me back from buying one.
... I will wait a while though, just in case they go back to Express Cards.
Mobile Broadband and eSATA are great uses of express cards.
Apple was trying to tailor the SD card slot for the vast majority of Apple users that use their computers for photography.
To me, it feels they weren't thinking at the bigger picture. You can find an SD card slot on printers now a days but not an ExpressCard slot. They should have just left that.
I guess for people like me that use the ExpressCard slot for eSATA transfers are out of the loop. Will settle with my 1st gen MBP.
Professional photography still uses CF. Not SD.
If they are tailoring their computers for photographers, then they should have put a mulitcard reader that can read CF cards there. Professional cameras all use CF cards and a good number of Mac laptop users are pro photographers.
Exactly. On my original MacBook Pro I used it for FireWire 800 (and later eSATA when I traded up to a new external HDD). My friend has an ExpressCard TV tuner (albeit, for a windows machine). I have an ExpressCard Verizon Mobile Broadband Dongle. There are ExpressCard SSDs. Still another friend has an IR remote that fits into the ExpressCard slot of his MacBook Pro for transportation.
There were so many things that it could be used for, with a wide variety, now tossed out the window.
I've been considering getting expresscard storage on my MBP for my virtual machine, but have a hard time justifying the price compared with USB, I like how the expresscards can sit flush, but again can't justify the huge price disparity.
My 15" MacBookPro is 3 years old and the express card slot has been used for the grand total of 2 times when I had to plug in someone else's VZW 3g card.
With the market moving towards things like Novatel MiFi there is no longer a need for Express Cards for most of the customers. I think the tendency will be Express Card USB Readers for the few holdouts until the technology slowly gets replaced by something which isn't from the stone age.
Yes, it is rather archaic. Technology has moved on - why the need for such a huge slot. I think one day we'll look back at them with amusement.
I would buy a 3G ExpressCard over one of those crappy dongles any day... even it cost more.
ExpressCard is a great way of expanding a device without having bits sticking precariously out of it.
My guess on what happened here? Apple probably heard a new spec was coming, got tired of waiting for new spec, so gave finger and switched to an SD slot. So, next day PCMCIA people give the finger right back and finalize spec.... Touché.
Anyone remember the initial reacting to Apple's dropping of floppy disk drives?
Actually, Apple explained exactly what happened in the keynote yesterday: A single-digit percentage of MacBook Pro owners use the ExpressCard slot, whereas a majority of the digital camera market uses SD cards. Therefore, Apple is giving the majority of their MacBook Pro customer what Apple perceives they want. It will either go over well, or not at all; time will tell.
where does the "1%" metric come from? users who answered a survey? How could they possibly know how many people use the slot?
Anyway, the decision makes sense from Apple's perspective, since their products are designed for planned obsolescence (seems like a year).
wouldn't want you putting a firewire 1600 card in when they come out :)
Or eSata. Would it really be so difficult to have both? Practically every other laptop does.
@matt
Assuming that Apple's research is correct, why bother putting in a feature if almost no one will use it?
I hope now we can get technologies like the Asus XG Station more to fruition. : )
I'd take an eSATA port instead of ExpressCard 34 or SD card slot anyday. ExpressCard could have been useful if peripherals weren't as expensive and bundled with buggy drivers. SD slot is cool, but it's a feature easily available via an USB or FW reader and it's doesn't cost a fortune.
Apple should definitely use the extra space for something really useful like more USB ports, HDMI out or eSATA.
The problem with that is not everyone will make use of an eSATA port. You could argue that its a moot point because next to no one used the ExpressCard port, of course, but the ExpressCard port had more inherent versatility - even to the point of being able to get an eSATA dongle.
more people would use an eSATA slot then a firewire800 port.
only thing that i have seen a firewire800 port used for is harddrive
if i could use a 3.0GB/s eSATA or a 800Mb/s firewire what would I pick?
hmmm......
sorry 3.0Gb/s -_-
You have to bare in mind that Firewire has a few additional features on the Mac that, to my knowledge, eSATA does not. You can use it to boot from a Firewire drive and use it for connecting 2 Macs together, either for networking or in order to boot/access the other's drive. I very definitely make use of my Firewire 800 port.
Personally I feel that these machines are called the MacBook PRO for a reason.
Professionals use external storage via eSATA, firewire 800, wireless 3G cards, video capture cards, audio mixing cards. All of these uses require expandability, not offered with standard USB or even just one Firewire 800 port.
These professionals if like me, like to have a fairly compact setup.
I don't like wireless 3G cards hanging on for dear life on the end of a USB dongle. The odds of that coming out accidentally when out and about are fairly high, compared to a fairly recessed wireless 3G card in an ExpressCard slot.
Also ExpressCard slots are capable of much higher transfer rates, when used with video capture cards and audio mixing that it is needed by professionals rather than a SD slot.
Throw in the fact that Sandisk also makes SD cards that have built in USB jacks to plug directly into a USB slot w/o the use of a card reader at all, makes the addition of an SD slot rather useless IMO.
I think Apple should have instead opted to keep the MacBook line in place, and put the SD card slots there, keeping the MacBook Pros with the full ExpressCard slots.