Sony's 32GB Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo HX proves that product naming is hard
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jul 13th 2009 4:28AM
posted Jul 13th 2009 4:28AM
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?
Great, next will be
MS Pro-HGVSsFJIUEWNFRiuGIURENVIUNVIURENVIE
Duo
or
SDXC
come on Sony.
And it will cost 300$ just like this one will when it launches. Then this one will be 50$.
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.
Sony might switch to xD cards if you complain enough, they've always thought the name to be catchy you see.
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".
Or you should have just read the specs first before buying that Walkman Phone so you don't have to rant afterwards.
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.
You got it for free and you can still complain ?
So.. it works in a PSP right? :p
SOMEONE ANSWER
my question exactly...
someone answer
Looooooooooooong name
Honestly it keeps SD on it's toes. Regardless of how open the SD standards are it's always good to have competition.
This is very true.
> 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.
"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.
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 $.
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.
@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.
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.
@ lawyer turd:
read my comment
ponder
read my comment again
ponder some more
think next time you respond
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
This was meant as a reply to GBeatzRecrds
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?
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...
@Platinum_Skeet: News flash, the PSPgo uses the smaller M2 memory stick micro, not the Pro Duo.
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.
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.
I'll wait for the super turbo championship edition, thanks....
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.
Presumably they ran out of space after typing the name.
LOL lot's of products make these type of mistakes, or it's fake.
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 ?
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.
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..
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...
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.
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 :/
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.
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.
Both the DSi and Wii use standard SD/SDHC cards.
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.
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!).
@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.
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.
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.
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.
why not the LS2LS7?,
Nowhere I mentioned M2.
Regards, tekdroid
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.
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).
That's a cool idea. I've got a Sony Reader; it might be useful to use both slots, but I don't want to buy a Memory Stick.
I sold my SONY camera for this reason and bought a canon. i won't support anymore of these silly formats by companies.
If you had examined the image you uploaded for this article, you would have noticed that the name is clearly "Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo." Although that is a relatively long name, please don't be a jackass and misrepresent the product. Perhaps you should consider that "HX" may be a tag for "High Speed" or "High Speed Data Transfer" rather than a part of the product name.
Next time, go all out by calling it "Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo High Speed Data Transfer HX read 20 MB/s For use with CX, Handycam and 'Cyber-shot' products" because you clearly don't have any regard to reporting the actual product name.
Um Chris, read the press release. Sony calls it the "Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo HX" exactly 5 times.
Thomas
Oh snap!
(This is the third time I've tried replying... so this will be significantly shorter than originally intended.)
That's both humbling and frustrating.
Humbling: my bad; this is a lesson to read source material before commenting.
Frustrating: Sony needs to establish and maintain product identity.
No price or date? As if the announcement already had enough juicy details. Thanks for trying to make this interesting, engadget.
As for the snarky Alpha comment, there is no Alpha that uses ONLY Memory Stick. My A100, A700 and A900 all work great with the Lexar UDMA CF cards, and the new 230, 330 and 380 take Memory Stick AND SD cards.
And sony apologized and said recently they should have listened to the customers more and will do so more in the future as you might recall, so to enable them the customers here are voicing their views on the sony memory cards, voilà.
My first 5 digital cameras were Sony's. The Memory Stick nonsense drove me to Canon and I have not looked back since. It is very nice to be able to move cards from camera to laptop, to phone, to netbook etc.
I once found SD cards for sale in a small grocery store in the middle of the Pyrenees Mountains in France. You would be lucky to find your particular flavor of Memory Stick in a fully stocked Best Buy in Silicon Valley.
I would be willing to bet that Saony loses more money on equipment sales from people avoiding the Memory Stick than they make selling Memory Sticks.
Who has a Sony memory stick? Mine are all Lexar or Sandisk.
I understand the naming is weird on this. The naming on SDHC Class 10 isn't? Or better yes SDHC micro class 10. And you can crap on Memory Stick all you want, but it didn't undergo an incompatible change in the last year like SD did with SD->SDHC (and the upcoming compatible but confusing SDXC!).
SD cards suck, why would I want to use some tiny, fragile DRM (hence the word "Secure")-protected card?
All memory sticks over 128MB are actually Memory Stick Pro (including this one) and thus have MagicGate, which is a similar DRM system to SD's system. Neither DRM scheme is employed in any device that I know of.
It's a wonder why the DRM has never been used. For modern consoles it would make a lot of sense. Ever since we starting using discs there has been an optional mechanism in most consoles to prevent you from making copies of a game save. Developers have been exploiting this more and more to prevent cheating in online play. The problem is this system is still there, but since saves a made internally there is no way to carry them over to another system if they've been locked like this. It would be nice if they used the DRM in such a way as to allow transfers while preventing an infinite number of copies from being made.
i wanna those that i can put all psp games in it but i will w8 till pspgo will come to my country