[Berryman]

Samsung Electronics announced today that it has developed a fingernail-size 8-Gbyte MicroSD memory card for mobile phones, (and future Blackberrys?)

The new card is capable of storing 2,000 MP3 music files, 4,000 digital photos, or about 5 DVD-quality movies, the company said. It has a read speed of 16 Mbps and a write speed of 6 Mbps.

Samsung is aggressively pursuing the SD card market, as well as the competing MMC, or multimedia card, market. Market research firm Dataquest expects the memory card market as a whole to average 10% annual growth through 2010, Samsung said.
Demand for high-density 8-Gbyte cards is expected to grow at an average of 2.6 times per year in the same time period. By 2010, the 8-Gbyte memory card, which has yet to be supported in phones, is expected to be the market mainstream in terms of units sold, Samsung said.

[anon(153966)]

I saw this online too - great info! My main concern is speed, you've mentioned it above, coping to and from the device...

In addition, am still not sure how much I would actually load / save on my BlackBerry...

Presently, I have a 2GB card in my 8800. Yet, I still have about 1/2GB left. I have lots of songs, and pictures, and even documents (Word, Excel, Notepad). But, I'd be really pushed to add anything more to it...

Maybe in time...

[fatreg]

Is this not going to use the SDHC format though?

[Berryman]

With a read speed of 16 Megabytes (MBs) per second and a write speed of 6MB/s, Samsung�s 8GB microSD card well exceeds the Speed Class 4 SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) standard which requires a data write speed of 4MB/s. This is also much faster than the SD Speed Class 2 designation carried by most competing microSD cards currently on the market.

I don't believe any of the latest Blackberrys support SDHC cards, (yet)

[MMB916]

Very cool!!

Also, I was under the impression that there wasn't support yet for cards over 2 GB - for example on the 8800. Is this incorrect?

Thanks in advance.

[cheungsta]

8Gigs....wow.....simply, wow.........can't wait.... =)

[kasperapd]

The 8300 is supposed to support 4GB cards.. but I don't think anyone has had the opportunity to test that yet.

[MMB916]

Thanks, Kasper. I know the test will come soon after 10 days

The 8300 is supposed to support 4GB cards.. but I don't think anyone has had the opportunity to test that yet.

[kasperapd]

If I could get my hands on a 4GB card I most certainly will test it. Just have to find a card.

[acljoe]

4GB cards are all over ebay.

Also, I just use the 2GB and carry about 3-4 of them in an SD case. Keep photos on one, certain music on another couple, and videos on anther. Not the best solution, but it works for me until they come out with a 32GB or 60GB MicroSD Card