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.
An expresscard 34 ssd will be faster than an SD card, expresscard allows mbp users to use faster esata harddrives for "pro" things like video editing, with final cut "pro". Also the expresscard slot is used for many "pro" video hardware pieces, like sony's XDcam ex1 and ex3 & Jvc's gy-hm700 camcorders that records to expresscards, aja io express which uses the expresscard to interface with a video IO box to allow direct video capture and proper video output/playback for editing, CF card readers for "pro" photographers that's much faster than a usb reader, all sorts of audio interfaces for audio pros.
Do people really use ExpressCard? I don't see anything that I *must* have to justify that much real estate taken up.
The lack of ExpressCard in the new macbooks is what gave the 2 additional hours in batt life.
weak, its still going to be a bottleneck for an external video card.
Great now i can transfer my SD cards at... oh wait nevermind, awesome i can hook up a network card for speeds up to... oh wait, nothing that could plug into a Expresscard can utilize the speed besides rediculously prices SSD's, so..... who cares then. Ive never even looked at my expresscard slot besides when i need to grab my dell remote from it, and even thats useless. so bleh.
Even my HP Pavilion notebook has both expresscard and SD. "Amazing" engineering, Apple.
boy people around here are real bright.
First off 95% of all express cards connect via USB2. Oh and for the idiots whining because an SD card slot connected to the USB bus is to slow... ALL Expesscard SD readers are USB2 Devices.
USB2 is still faster than most drives, and if you need speed Firewire 800 delivers.
I've never seen a 3G card that didn't stick out of the expresscard slot also.
eSATA is a one trick pony, storage only. USB, Firewire, Ethernet Wifi all can be used for tons of different stuff.
FW 3200, USB3, 10 Gb enet.... none of these can realistically be added via an expresscard.
screw eSATA just use iSATA
OK for the 38 people out there that use a Video capture device that connects via PCIe in an express card your out of luck. OK your next $15,000 video capture device will be a stand alone unit that will connect to the Firewire 800 that your capture dives are connected to anyway because there is no way your gonna capture HD to slow ass internal drive. (most pros already capture direct to external HDs)
Once USB3 ships is there any real reason for the internal slot???? HD's check, Blueray check, Displays check, video Check.
The only reason PCs have Expresscard slots is so people can add all the stuff that Apple builds in.
I'm just happy it's backwards compatible. Did no one else notice that or are they just too busy on the "Apple is stupid! / No they're not!" debate?
And please, do not reply to the first comment unless you're actually replying to the first comment, ya jerks.
Thank you for using 'backwards compatible' rather than the MS for-euphemisticism invented 'legacy' silliness, invented because the marketing department didn't want them to use the word backwards for their previous software efforts.
all you guys are missing the point, (and Macs are gay) a express slot is a PCI-E slot that can be easily accessed on a notebook, it is very similar to the PCI-E slot you use in you Desktops for GFX cards, and other expansions. it is for bandwidth, not price, availability, or anything else. its just a universal PCI-e slot that can be used for everything from External GFX cards to Like you said SD Card Read