Sony's 32GB Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo HX proves that product naming is hard

What's not to love here? Just look at that handsome blister pack, ready to mince flesh in your enthusiasm to get at Sony's largest and most convolutedly named Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo HX. The 32GB stick is rated at 20MBps reads or 15MBps writes when using the bundled USB adapter. Imagine, had you purchased pretty much any device other than that Cyber-shot, Handycam, or Alpha shooter from Sony you could have been enjoying 30MBps read/writes from 32GB SDHC class 10 cards. Nope, no availability date or pricing announced, how could that information possibly be useful in a press release?

[nDy @ Jul 13th 2009 4:34AM]

Great, next will be
MS Pro-HGVSsFJIUEWNFRiuGIURENVIUNVIURENVIE
Duo

or
SDXC

come on Sony.

[Kurian @ Jul 13th 2009 2:52PM]

And it will cost 300$ just like this one will when it launches. Then this one will be 50$.

[Nikesh @ Jul 13th 2009 7:33PM]

And that's why Sony needs to hurry the hell up with their commitment to stop using this inferior proprietary crap. All it does is cost them customers and the customers they do manage to get a forced to deal with slower, inferior products.

[Wwhat @ Jul 13th 2009 10:55PM]

Sony might switch to xD cards if you complain enough, they've always thought the name to be catchy you see.

[GBeatzRecrds @ Jul 13th 2009 4:35AM]

There is no reason for Memory Stick to exist. It is nothing but a burden to society.

I just love how Sony advertises my Ericsson W350i as a "Walkman" and yet it has no 3.5mm jack and does not come with a memory card. Then I think, "oh, I have a 2GB MicroSD lying around, I can just use that"-only to find that it only supports "Memory Stick Micro" a.k.a. "M2", which I can find for a reasonable price online, but nevertheless, I could find perfectly good MicroSDHCs of the same capacities for far, far cheaper.

I'm gonna have to get myself a $5 Sony proprietary-connector-to-3.5mm adapter along with a $40 8GB M2 card in order for this thing to function as a "Walkman".

[xValentine @ Jul 13th 2009 5:12AM]

Or you should have just read the specs first before buying that Walkman Phone so you don't have to rant afterwards.

[GBeatzRecrds @ Jul 13th 2009 1:03PM]

I got the W350i for free. That's the only reason I have it.

If I had to buy a phone, it'd be an E63.

[xValentine @ Jul 14th 2009 12:54AM]

You got it for free and you can still complain ?

[David @ Jul 13th 2009 4:40AM]

So.. it works in a PSP right? :p

[arrness (PSN: chsowls) @ Jul 18th 2009 10:03PM]

SOMEONE ANSWER

[arrness (PSN: chsowls) @ Jul 18th 2009 10:04PM]

my question exactly...

someone answer

[thedesp @ Jul 13th 2009 4:55AM]

Looooooooooooong name

[Totalfixation @ Jul 13th 2009 4:48AM]

Honestly it keeps SD on it's toes. Regardless of how open the SD standards are it's always good to have competition.

[B3astofthe3ast @ Jul 13th 2009 5:23AM]

This is very true.

[Dummy00001 @ Jul 13th 2009 6:03AM]

> Honestly it keeps SD on it's toes.

Your logic is screwed. Try to imagine the PC industry split over two incompatible connection formats for HDDs: SATA and say NATA. (Or different RAM sockets. Or different power connectors.)

We have now cheap hard drives in part because there were never real "competition" of connector formats. Real competition is (and should be) in flash storage media itself - not how *customers* can connect it to their devices.

[ray @ Jul 13th 2009 7:47AM]

"Try to imagine the PC industry split over two incompatible connection formats"

what like different sockets for AMD and Intel processors? and even Intel and Intel procs.??
What you should have said was that competition will exist between the people who make the SD cards like Kingston/Toshiba/Sandisk (as is has) a little bit like between EVGA/BFG/Gigabyte/ASUS in graphics cards.

[EI8HT @ Jul 13th 2009 10:47AM]

dummy....you live up to your name.
if sony came out with memory cards with higher capacities (speed, memory, etc.) then everyone would go out and buy sony products that work with said cards. you can say the same thing about sd cards. when someone comes out with something new and better, whatever it may be (cars, computers, fake boobs, etc.), it always makes the competitor (hence the word competition) step it up a notch. that being said, i think sony gets around to matching sd capacities way too late and for way too much $.

[lawyer bird @ Jul 13th 2009 11:42AM]

Ei8ght, or whatever your name is...

No, that would not happen, as long as Memory stick is still relegated to Sony products, which it always will be because it's been too long, people aren't going to be like, wha??? sony has a 40 MB/s transfer speed and SD has a 32 MB/s speed?? OMG time to throw away all my SD cards and cameras and buy all Sony now!

just no.

[coolblue @ Jul 13th 2009 11:59AM]

@EI8HT

I do not buy electronic devices purely for the memory card format. I buy them for their quality and function over anything else. However if 2 products are similar I would rather buy a product that uses SD cards as I have loads and can get more of them cheaply. In terms of storage formats I do not think having two very similar but incompatible formats is a good thing. Plus it is not as if Memory stick has pushed SD along as it has been in catch-up mode ever since it released.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jul 13th 2009 12:07PM]

The SD standards aren't even close to open. The SD consortium are pretty tight with their stuff. That's why MMC still exists, to offer the same technology to companies that refuse to kowtow to the SD folks.

[EI8HT @ Jul 13th 2009 2:21PM]

@ lawyer turd:
read my comment
ponder
read my comment again
ponder some more
think next time you respond

[G @ Jul 13th 2009 4:48AM]

hmm, this name is even worse than the DVRSMMC (dual voltage reduced size multimedia card) i had to buy for my nokia 4 years ago

but then again it holds 128 times as much data which is not bad

[Totalfixation @ Jul 13th 2009 4:48AM]

This was meant as a reply to GBeatzRecrds

[pika2000 @ Jul 13th 2009 4:51AM]

Sony, again, are shooting themselves in the foot. More and more Sony devices, including Sony Ericsson phones and PSPgo, only accept the smaller M2 memory stick. Sony, will you just give up and let Memory Stick go?

[Platinum_Skeet @ Jul 13th 2009 3:07PM]

A homebrew driven PSPGO with a 32 GB memory stick duo is pretty bad-ass no matter what way you put it.

You can put your whole game collection from Atari to PS1, a ton of music, movies to watch for days and s ton of PSP games to play. If the PSP's battery lasted longer than 3-5 hours this would be killer hardware...

[pika2000 @ Jul 13th 2009 3:09PM]

@Platinum_Skeet: News flash, the PSPgo uses the smaller M2 memory stick micro, not the Pro Duo.

[HC @ Jul 13th 2009 4:53AM]

It keeps SD competitive... Remember that Sony still makes a ton of sales in its Digital Cameras, PSP's, Handycam's etc...

Competition is great... it allows for greater innovation.

[Plothole @ Jul 13th 2009 6:20AM]

SD is already internally competitive. That is to say the many companies that produce them are all competing for your dollar. This has had a far greater impact on price and performance.

[mocax @ Jul 13th 2009 4:54AM]

I'll wait for the super turbo championship edition, thanks....

[Zombie Ned Flanders @ Jul 13th 2009 4:59AM]

Oh Sony.
When will you realize that less is more.
Both in your naming conventions and in your product lines.

You make some pretty nice shit Sony. But you need to ditch a lot of crappy stuff you make and create a unified brand that looks like it has a plan and is going somewhere. Take a look at Apple.

[sockatume @ Jul 13th 2009 5:02AM]

Presumably they ran out of space after typing the name.

[webterractive @ Jul 13th 2009 5:11AM]

LOL lot's of products make these type of mistakes, or it's fake.

[xValentine @ Jul 13th 2009 5:18AM]

For those who are still complaining about Sony's proprietary cards, always remember, you have a choice.

If you don't want the "Memory Stick" cards, don't buy products that use it. It's that simple.

But yes, the problem lies if you really like that product. That's where you're stucked with that memory stick. Well you should have known that before you even buy it right ?

[Orinjz @ Jul 13th 2009 6:09AM]

Its all very well saying "you should have known beforehand", but for a lot of general, non-tech savvy consumers, they won't realise that the Sony camera/phone/walkman that they just purchased only accepts Sony's own memory format. Considering the majority of manufacturers support SD cards, it's understandable that there'd be a blanket assumption that the card you used in your old devices is probably going be usable with your new one regardless of the manufacturer.

Sony have essentially done whatever they wanted to do regardless of the impact on their customers and its a flaw that even their CEO admitted to. It's way past time for them to stop messing around with memory formats that are often twice as expensive as the competition and get serious about making a major shift towards more open standards.

[trew @ Jul 13th 2009 7:02AM]

Some idiots seem to think it's cool to hate Sony. The media told them these brainless cretins to think this.

Microsoft fitting proprietary and overpriced HDD to their Xbox is perfectly OK thou... They need to look closer to home methinks..

[y3k.nik @ Jul 13th 2009 9:56AM]

Honestly, every time I buy a new device chances are I am going to buy a new memory card along with it, since capacities tend to double or even quadruple since my last memory card purchase, so the fact that I have to get a Memory Stick or a MMC or an SD. If you look around they are all the same prices anyways...

[GBeatzRecrds @ Jul 13th 2009 1:02PM]

I got the W350i for free. That's the only reason I have it.

If I had to buy a phone, it'd be an E63.

[james.terry.larson @ Jul 14th 2009 1:42AM]

That's not those crazy packages. That is the kind that opens kinda like a laptop. I'm not sure how else to describe it :/

[kingofwale @ Jul 13th 2009 5:57AM]

I love how people always complain about Sony's "proprietary" card. As if Sony is the only one doing it.

How about Apple? Microsoft? Nintendo? Sharp?



It's really simple. DOn't like it? Don't buy it.

[solmar @ Jul 13th 2009 6:10AM]

Have you ever read the threads about those other companies you mention?
Wow, there are also complaints about proprietary hardware/software.

So, no, people aren't complaining only about Sony.

[Plothole @ Jul 13th 2009 6:21AM]

Both the DSi and Wii use standard SD/SDHC cards.

[giuliop @ Jul 13th 2009 7:03AM]

Maybe you like all the other features and would like a couple of things to be changed. Maybe the alternatives are all worse for you. You suggest not to buy anything and not complain? Sounds like a stupid solution to me.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jul 13th 2009 12:54PM]

Plothole:
And the PS3 supported CF, SD and memory stick until they removed the card reader completely. Now you can use either a standard USB key or plug in an off-the-shelf card reader and use CF, SD or memory stick again (heck, even xD!).

[Plothole @ Jul 14th 2009 12:43AM]

@why not the LS2LS7?

However Sony did initially try to push the PS3 as a home media center. So having support for multiple formats was a must. The only problem is in portable devices like the PSP, where having some sort of external memory cards is far more critical, they still force you to use their crappy format.

[solmar @ Jul 13th 2009 6:07AM]

Haha, full of responses from people complaining about people complaining.

Really, you guys should take your own advice. If you don't like the comments, don't read them.

And... do you guys really think that everyone who complains about some product will buy said product? That's a grossly inaccurate assumption. I hate the memory stick (overpriced, proprietary, sony-only, etc. etc.), but... there are products (like the PSP) which simply can't be chosen (no real alternative, and no, the DS is not an alternative, as it does not run PSP games), yet use the memory stick. So... what do I do? I buy a micro-sd to memory stick adapter, of course... costs roughly half the price of a memory stick.

[tekdroid @ Jul 13th 2009 6:35AM]

I recently bought an 8GB Memory Stick Pro Duo Mark 2 (phew). Sony rate these devices at a minimum write speed of 15Mbps (megaBITS per second). Which isn't much, right?
http://www.memorystick.com/en/memorystick/feature/index.html#p02
Sony is very vague on their speeds in the Pro Duo (Duo Pro?) line and not exactly bragging about higher speeds if these cards can do them, are they?


The cost? USD $35.
The same stick in SDHC format currently buys me 16GB, not 8GB (Kingston, Class 4).
(Class 4, 4 MegaBYTES per second write, not 2 megaBITS minimum write like the Sony)

Needless to say... the Sony (and Sandisk co-conspirator) Memory Stick Tax.
Someone, somewhere, is loving the mark-up on these things.
It's like selling a razor and laughing at the money coming in from the blades. No different, really.

It is a good thing flash memory is far more reasonable than it used to be, though. Buying several higher-capacity sticks could still send you to the poor house if not careful, though.

If Sony can be avoided (sometimes their stuff is too cool), well then it's best avoided.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jul 13th 2009 12:55PM]

SDHC and M2 are not comparable, because SDHC is so much larger. You need to compare M2 against SDHC micro. SDHC micro will likely be cheaper, but not nearly as much. Larger cards can use older, lower capacity chips (in larger numbers), and both M2 and SDHC micro are too small to allow this.

[tekdroid @ Jul 13th 2009 7:36PM]

why not the LS2LS7?,
Nowhere I mentioned M2.

Regards, tekdroid

[Prophet of the Light @ Jul 13th 2009 6:47AM]

Too slow to care if it is 32 gb. If you try to fill it up, it will take ages. I guess these kinds of devices are great for people who want to have a lot of space and don't care if they have to wait to actually use it.

@10 megabytes per second (which might be too high), it would take about an hour to fill. Not really all that great if you actually want to use the thing for anything other than psp game saves.

[Richard @ Jul 13th 2009 6:55AM]

If you find yourself in the unlucky position of having to use Memory Stick Pro Duo's then look out for the SDHC converter cards you can get.

I have one of those and a couple of 8GB MicroSDHC's and not only do I avoid buying a niche format of card (which stops being useful when my PSP dies) but I saved a bucket load of money (as, at the time, 8GB Memory Stick Pro Duo's were around £80 each).