It's flash card season at CES (especially given the shutterbug boost by the conjoined Photo Marketing Association show), and SanDisk has a contribution with high-capacity mid-range SDXC cards.
The two SanDisk Extreme models, 64GB and 128GB, can transfer data at 45MBps. That's less than half the speed of the company's top-end Extreme Pro line of SD cards at 95MBps, but it should be good enough for many photographers and videographers.
The high capacity comes with a price premium--prices for the cards are $200 and $400--but could be useful for those shooting lots of video or traveling away from a computer. And if you're shooting raw photos--my camera's weigh in at 30MB apiece, typically--this card will hold more than 4,000 still images.
The cards are available now, SanDisk said (flying in the face of the CES vaporware trend).
The cards, with the UHS-I interface, are up to the chore of capturing 3D video in high-definition 1080p video, Sandisk said.
Also at CES, SanDisk rival Lexar announced faster but more expensive UHS-I cards, including a 64 gb
model that reaches 90MB/sec and a 128GB model that reaches 60MB/sec.
And on a more ethereal plane, Sony announced the first examples of a new flash card format called XQD. It offered 16GB and 32GB models of the cards, which so far work only in Nikon's new flagship D4 SLR.
The CompactFlash Association developed the new format as a sequel to CF. XQD offers faster data transfer speeds--125MBps in Sony's case--with faster speeds to come.
The Spanish arm of Motorola Mobility has just announced the launch of the world's first Honeycomb tablet, the Motorola XOOM in Spain through El Corte Ingles.
The tablet will be available sometime this month for a suggested retail price of 599€ without contract.
Although the official statement mentions that the XOOM will be delivered with Android 3.0 Honeycomb on board, there's a high chance that the tablet will carry a newer Android version.
The device has a built-in gyroscope, barometer, e-compass, accelerometer, adaptive lighting and supports up to 10 hours of video playback. However, the rest of specs are the same, including the 1GHz dual-core processor and the 1 GB of RAM. As expected, Motorola XOOM offers users really fast performance thanks to its powerful dual-core processor. In addition, the tablet presents itself as the ultimate customization tool with an interactive, customizable homescreen with moveable widgets, notifications and tabbed web browsing. Obviously, the tablet comes with a large 10.1-inch widescreen HD capacitive touchscreen display with 16 million colors support and 1280 x 800 pixels resolution. The high resolution and the size of the display allow for a richer and clearer video content than one would expect from a mobile device. In addition, support for HDMI enables users to watch videos and movies on larger screens, such as HD televisions. “Motorola XOOM is the benchmark for Android 3.0 and what the tablet experience needs to be. Designed from the ground up with users in mind, now with a 3G version, it provides additional ways to connect with friends have fun and stay productive while on the move,” said Juan Carlos de la Vela, managing director at Motorola Mobility España. Motorola XOOM sports an average 5-megapixel camera with HD video recording capabilities, as well as a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chats.
