During their party at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, OCZ Technology gave me two gifts. One of them was the OCZ Roadster, the world’s smallest USB 2.0 Flash Drive, which was given away and won by Stephen De Chellis of HMTKSteve in a blog contest.
The other gift OCZ gave me, which I haven’t talked about yet, is their new Hi-Speed Secure Digital Dual memory card. This is the coolest SD card I have ever seen and I think OCZ is going to sell of ton of them. The card can be used as a SD card for your digital camera or as a USB flash drive. It allows the transfer of digital camera photos to the computer without the use of any card readers or 3rd party software.
The Secure Digital Dual looks like any other SD memory card and works with any device that accept SD memory. For most of us, that’s our digital cameras, but you can use the Dual with PDAs, MP3 players, etc. What makes the Secure Digital Dual unique is the cap at end.
Pull the end cap off and the OCZ Secure Digital Dual exposes a USB input that will work with any computer USB port. This means you can take photos from a digital camera and transfer them directly to the computer with a USB port. No need for a card reader!
The OCZ Secure Digital Dual really came in handy during my CES trip because the built in SD reader in my notebook stop working and I didn’t have a spare card reader. With the Secure Digital Dual, I just plug the unit into one of the laptop’s three USB ports and transferred all the photos I took that day. The neat thing is transferring pictures this way is a lot faster than using a card reader.
How much does this engineering masterpiece cost? A lot less than you think. The 2GB Secure Digital Dual cost no more than any other 2GB SD memory card. My TTZ Media price engine shows the SD SD Dual selling for about $50.00.
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{ 45 comments }
I have the Sandisk equivalent (it’s not a cap, but rather a flip-out portion) and it costs a little more than a standard SD card from Sandisk. The 1GB high-speed card was $55 when I bought it a few months ago.
wow, why does that sound dirt cheap for a 2GB dual USB and SD memory card? Cool function.
What don’t they give you at the 2007 CES??
When you’re John Chow you get everything you want (and more)!
I guess it must be nice being John Chow. Wait, when I said that, I got a glimps of that girl in the lingerie overtaking the guy at the computer…ahhh, that was a good clip
Agree too this 100 %
That is very cool! It would be so much more convenient than having to have a card reader. No plans to give this one away, huh?
Nifty.. My laptop has an SD reader though, which is nice
80x is hardly high speed, but FREE IS GOOD.
Is speed still an issue with SD memory cards? I assume it is. I admit that it’s been some time since I’ve messed with SD, but “how fast” is 80x exactly, and is that as fast as it gets?
Relating back to your article the other day about the speed of technology advancement, how long until we have 32GB SD cards? probably 2 years? and 64GB in 3yrs? and probably be microSD as well!
They’re not widely available but there are several SD cards out there that can store way more than “just” 2 gigabytes. Speaking of 32GB cards, Panasonic is projected to have them by the end of next year:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2007/01/_32gb_sd_cards_in_2008_1.html
I have a reader that reads that size already. Bring it
What’s next… a terabyte?!
I think John’s vision in his ‘cut and paste’ post is already coming to fruition.
But, judging by the expected prices of these gadgets, you might just want to use 16 2GB cards instead of 1 32GB until a year of two
That’s pretty sweet… but who the heck uses SD memory?!
Hey, I’m still on the SD memory!!! And don’t get me started on the 3.5 disks either
I do for my PPC, great for music and you can get other SD MP3 players so you can plug your SD card into them for listening to music. Really versatile.
Haha. I know I don’t
I sure don’t
Im sorry for the double post but for some reason my comments have a delay on them. So I don’t know if its a site issue or a blog issue. However this sucks.
it will not be the coolest anymore in the next 2-3 months
Thats for sure, Thats with everyting tech related i guess
Oh come on now, if John Chow has it then it will still be cool… kinda like that typewriter he has.
Lol Ryan, It may still be cool… but out of date to
Haha, your right
John,
I’ll trade the world’s smallest thumb drive for the SD card!
I just got a Wii and I now need to get an SD card to use with it. Trouble is that I have nothing that uses an SD card aside from my Wii!
Wait, you mean you don’t have to have a special Wii memory stick?! It seems like every device has to have a special memory stick! (See Sony).
Very nice I always thought of getting one of these SD cards just for their ease of use for transfering data from a digital camera or other things. A really good idea saving an internal USB port to use a card reader. Or if out at friends places that done have a card reader just the ease of plugging it straight into a USB would be really handy.
Since when do you need software to pull the pictures off your camera?
Though I would love to have a 8GB SD card, very handing when shootingin RAW.
Now I know it’s not a SD card but I’ve seen a 64GB USB flash drive (thumbdrive) though its MRSP was $15,000 or something insanely too high.
I’d say the larger cards are coming soon, but not too too soon.
Oh if I had that Canon EOS MarkII camera that has dual CF cardslots that work as a RAID and with 64GB CF cards, that would be sweet!
Cant seem to see my comments !!!
I see it, I see it!
Yea same things happening to me sometimes. Theres a delay. But I noticed it on other blogs also. So it must be a WordPress thing.
I got that problem with my first two comments here in the blog. I think that John Chow needs to accept your first comment before you can start commenting without getting checked.
Am I right?
A nice price for this useful thing, compared to USB sticks it seems a little easy to break and a little more expensive, but that doesn’t drop the advantages.
@Raghu, if you posted an URL your comment has to be approved by John first.
That’s a brilliant gadget. I don’t know any geek that wouldn’t want something as awesome as that. Great find John.
If they’re even remotely rugged enough, they really are going to sell a lot of these.
You always get free stuff John. I am jealous.
Arn’t we all
Yes, we are
SanDisk has something similar but with a slightly better design. The card flips up to reveal the USB connection (less parts to lose).
hey John do you get free video cards? And if you do can you make a contest thingie out of it?
Forget that I need a mp3 player.
Wow that USB plug in is sweet. Wiht my Sony SD card or whatever it’s called, I need an adapter to put into my 7-in-1 card reader on my laptop.
But yeah, i never use the USB cable anymore .It’s much easier to trasnfer files direclty through that channel of plugging in the card.
2 GB for $50? That’s the price we get for 1 GB card here in Malaysia.
A lot of hardware is cheaper in the US (and prices often noted without taxes), sadly
That’s what we have internet stores for my friend