Memory Stick Micro (M2) - Does it make sense?

[TooNice]

Last year, I bought the Sony Ericsson W800i. Most phones could do pictures and MP3s, and though I don't doubt the W800i did those well, it was the inclusion of the 512MB Memory Stick Duo Pro that gave the final nudge.

Now my contract is coming to an end, I am looking to get a new phone. Not for myself, I am content keeping my W800i for another year, but for my bro who had the same old phone for ages. The K800 looks like a solid contender.

Enters the Memory Stick M2. I know for his use, it'll be perfectly adequate. I don't see him use the MP3/Camera that much, so the 64MB internal memory is probably adequate. But it is making me think about about upgrading my 512MB stick, and I am wondering if the format makes sense. I don't have much information on the format so I took a look at the Wiki, and it doesn't look like it's offering much more than it's predecessor when weighting for pros and cons.

At least from a consumer perspective. The good is that the memory is much smaller than it's already small predecessor. And it's supposed to be able to hit much higher capacity later on. But at this point, it is also considerably more costly, and doesn't come near the 1GB. I am not sure if it is supposed to read/write faster, or consume less power, I didn't come up with much Googling on the format. But considering that existing consumers would have to throw away the current format (assuming the M2 is meant as a direct replacement to the Duo Pro - and it seems to be the case at least for mobile phones), it doesn't seem to provide enough incentive. What if I had already purchased a 2GB Memory Stick Duo Pro with my W800i and wanted to upgrade to a K800? Not only would I have to sell off my Duo Pro, but I would also have to sacrifice almost half the storage given that the most M2 currently provide is 1GB.

Basically would it not have made more sense to release the M2 after it could match the capacity of the predecessor? As it is, it seems to trade physical size for capacity.

Note: Perhaps this is standard practice with other formats too (Micro SD?). And I would question all the same.

Note2: I note that the W850i still use the Memory Stick Duo Pro. I am not sure if that phone came before or after the K800. If it was released after, then I suppose that Sony would like to further differentiate the W-series and the K-series in this manner.

[Funkstar]

I think the reason for the different memory formats between the W850 and the K800 is the different brands the phones are marketed under. The K800 is a cybershot phone so is promoted as being a camera phone (although it can also play music) Even with a 3mp sensor you don't *really* need 2gig+ cards just for photos. On the other hand the W850 is a Walkman phone that can also take photos. This means it is also kind of competing with iPods and other MP3 players. In this instance high capacity memory modules is important, hence they used a Duo slot.

As far as i know, the M2 card is electrically *identical* to MemoryStick Pro and Duo Pro cards. The Duo adapter you get with them is just a passive casing. This is the same with miniSD and microSD (formerly Transflash).

[Steve B]

its also another ploy to get you to invest in more sony-specific gear

[furiousfoggy]

The size is stupidly small, I think they've done it to make them easier to lose, so you buy more!

[dave87]

Heh, mine has permanently stayed in my phone

[monkeyville]

Mine is permanently lodged in my intestine. They are tasty

[dave87]

Originally Posted by monkeyville

Mine is permanently lodged in my intestine. They are tasty

Not quite as tasty as a Compact Flash Card, though they do take a bit of chewing

[Lourdes]

These size changes are a little annoying but they reduce power consumption and flash memory prices are just tumbling. I remember paying £50 for a 512MB SD card 2 years ago. A 512MB microSD one costs a fiver.

[zashark]

I suppose it does and does not make sense! Like how other people have posted here there are advantages with the newer technology, but you have to pay for it. just like pc's for that matter! weigh it up and if thats what you want then go for it

[TarnxTarn]

It is abit annoying when people introduce newer format of memory....
Not many products take advantage of the smaller size or the ability to hold larger capacity.

For mobile phone, the larger size for me mean i can store more of my songs, the camera from phone does not offer much quality to me and they can be upload to computer on daily basis... 512 MB will be more than enough for the pictures

However, when it comes to music and songs, 512 MB is not enough and I usually prefer above 1 or 2 GB

Still current format of memory (Duo Pro and Mini SD) can cope with the used and the size....

The bottom line is consumers are automatically force to change to newer format because of the new product they buy, not that they want to use it...

This means the manufacture will get more £££.... from our pockets...

[TooNice]

Oooh, resurrection of the thread - I thought it looked familiar

As far as I know, the Duo Pro is at 8GB while M2 is at 2GB. Still a hefty difference. The latest Walkman phone uses the M2, though it is admitedly also a ultra compact phone.

I can understand the need for new generation of memory cards to expend the top capacity (not that the Duo has even come close to the theoretical limit), power consumption (which I understand will have some correlation with size) and performance (it's not ideal to have a massive storage if it takes forever to fill it up). I am fine paying for such improvement. Even miniaturisation is good up to a point (although if they keep going at it, we'll eventually need a pair of tweezers just to insert a memory card into our phone). But not at the cost of halving (or worse) the capacity of it's predecessor.

[Funkstar]

Absolutly, new memory formats are needed from time to time.

I can't imagine them getting any smaller than M2 or micro-SD.

The MemoryStick Pro cards have an upper limit of 32GB so either Sony will have to use another type of card (CompactFlash or SDHC) in high capacity devices, such as camcorders etc. or they will have to release another iteration of the format.

SDHC cards have a maximum capacity of 2TB, which is pretty respectable. CompactFlash is basically just an ATA device so it limited to 137GB just now but could easily be taken up to 144petebytes using ATA-6 with 48-bit addressing, just like IDE did.