Kingston Announces 16 GB SDHC Memory Card

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.kingston.com/press/2008/flash/01e.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.kingston.com/press/2008/flash/01e.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is adding a 16GB Class 4 SDHC Flash memory card to give consumers greater storage flexibility and faster speed to optimize use of today's higher resolution imaging equipment. The new 16GB card is the largest capacity in Kingston's line of SDHC cards, which include 4- and 8GB SDHC Class 2/4/6 versions. "Higher resolution digital cameras and increasingly popular HD video camcorders require high capacity memory cards with faster data transfer rates (DTRs) to maximize overall performance of the recording device," said Jaja Lin, Flash memory marketing manager, Kingston®. "Our new 16GB Class 4 memory card answers the performance needs and expands Kingston's product line to provide a memory solution for every application." Even with today's high resolution recording devices, a 16GB memory card can store literally thousands of photos and hours of high definition video. For example, the new 16GB SDHC card can capture more than 7,500* images (with a 6MP camera) and more than four hours* of video (for 6Mbps HD Extended recording)."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1201811562.usr1.jpg" /><br /><br />The march toward more storage continues with Kingston releasing this 16 GB SDHC memory card. It's not just about storage space any more though - with the increasing number of HD video cameras that record to Flash storage, speed matters as well. This new line of Kingston cards is offered in three different speed classes: a class 2 card is rated for 2 MB/s, class 4 cards are rated for 4 MB/s, and class 6 cards are (wait for it) 6 MB/s. A class 4 card with 16 GB of storage will run you $231 USD MSRP, so it's not exactly cheap...but 16 GB in such a small package is sure tasty!

[DaleReeck]

Actually, I disagree, $231 is pretty cheap. It wasn't that long ago that cards with these new outrageous storage capabilities would run $2000 and only professional photographers and such would be able to afford them. Now, these big cards are debuting in the price range of average PDA users.

[Gerard]

I'm a bit puzzled as to why this particular 16GB card series from Kingstron merits publication as any sort of 'news' item. In local flyers, I've been seeing 16GB SD cards for a while now. Just this week in the usual heap of flyers, either Best Buy or London Drugs was listing a Panasonic 16GB SDHC (unspecified speed rating) at $250. Meanwhile, looking in the local computer paper HUB, I see that Expc.ca (a shop in Burnaby, about 3km from my house in Vancouver) is offering a Transcend 16GB SDHC card rated at speed class 6, for $89.98, alongside 4GB and 8GB cards for $19.98 and $39.98 respectively.

I have had nothing but good experiences with Transcend cards, so this seems a great deal. It also happens to fall comfortably within my personal memory buying rule; no more than $100, no matter what type nor size of memory. I made that up a few years ago, as I got tired of feeling ripped off just months after buying some nice new memory card. This way it's never going to hurt too much, as it's never going to be a lot of money. I fudged my rule slightly, once, spending $130 on a 320GB external hard drive... but it's such a lot of memory that I'm staying happy with that 6 months later.

Anyway, not meaning to be too heavy here... just saying Kingston's offering at well over $200 doesn't seem quite up to date.