The xD-Picture Card is the new Guy in Town!
Written: Apr 01 '03 (Updated Jul 14 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Nice small size with a lot of storage space.
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: The xD-Picture Card is what the future could bring in small size storage for the digital camera.
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| surferdude7's Full Review: Olympus 128 MB xD-Picture Card |
Olympus and Fuji have joined forces to produce what is considered a new and better memory card for the digital camera and devices like an MP3 player. The card is very small, larger than a penny in size but yet smaller than a quarter. Actual size is 1 inch wide by 0.8 inches in height and only 0.07 inches thick. This card is so small it weighs less that 1/10 of an ounce.
The name xD-Picture Card stands for eXtreme Digital, meaning it is for portable storage, portable recording and recording/transporting audio-visual information.
For those of you that have a camera or device that takes a PCMCIA PC Card or CompactFlash card, Olympus offers an adapter so you can use an xD-Picture Card.
Right now the xD-Picture Card can be found in size of 16MB, (MB=megabytes) 32MB, 64MB, 128MB and if you look hard you can find it in a 256MB card. Olympus says that in the not to far future that the chip can be available up to 8GB (GB=Gigabytes). Later this year in 2003 they expect to have a 512MB and 1GB card out and maybe even a larger one.
This tiny card is made to transfer data and images fast to your computer.
Improvements over other cards!
1. As mentioned above size is an improvement by being the smallest card with the possibility of the largest storage in the future.
2. The cards can have data written on them for storage.
3. Ideal for movie storage once they have the 8GB card out.
4. The card is the one of the fastest of all media cards on the market right now.
5. The card is used to conserve on power usage making your batteries last longer.
Speeds
The Olympus xD-Picture Card gives you some of the fastest read/write speeds as of today. All card have a read speed of 5MB per second. On the write speed it varies depending on what MB card you have, a 16MB or 32MB card can record data at 1.3MB per second while a 64MB card and above record data at 3MB per second.
This means your photos are taken a lot faster and you can view them faster also.
Pros
The cost of a xD-Picture Card seems to be compatible with same size of a SmartMedia card or CompactFlash card.
Fast on record and read speeds.
Large storage capacity for the future.
A nice small size making it easy for data & photo storage for digital cameras and many other small electronic devices.
Cons
The only disappointment for me is there is no SmartMedia card adapter for my Olympus Camedia C-3000 Zoom Digital Camera and I don’t think they will have one in the future because of the thin design of the SmartMedia card. The SmartMedia card seems to have the limit of a 128MB card.
Overall
What the card means is a lot more storage for photos in your digital cameras while recording them at a faster speed. For the MP3 player it means you can store a lot more songs than before for hours of music listening. For movies it will give a lot more recording time since videos eat up memory.
One future outlook I was told was to be able to use them in a PDA sometime in the future.
It is hard to say what the future brings for the xD-Picture Card but what I have seen and used it is going to be a winner.
As on the Olympus SmartMedia Memory Cards all Olympus xD-Picture Cards will have the Panorama function.
If Olympus and Fuji both work together and produce the 8GB card then I think that the xD-Picture Cards will be one of the hottest items for the next couple of years. Even if they make a 4MB or better card, with a reasonable price, they will be in great demand for new products. Price is everything, if the big gigabyte cards are over priced then the xD-Picture Cards will have a slow start.
Here are some cameras that take the xD Picture Card
Olympus Stylus 300 Digital Camera
Olympus Stylus 400 Digital Camera
Fuji FinePix A303 Digital Camera
Olympus C-750 Ultra Zoom Digital Camera.
Recommended:
Yes
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