[toni-a]

Samsung started making 512 GB chips not only they are capable of storing 512 GB (for now) they are also faster than existing cards, might this make memory cards an outdated thing from the past ? 

 

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-...le-devices

[stoppingdown]

I presume you're saying that those chips can be integrated in a camera, removing the need for an external storage. Maybe, but there are some issues to solve first:

 

1. Price

2. 512GB is a lot today for many users (I could store really many many journeys), but not necessarily for all users. For instance, just making some experiments with 4k video I filled 64GB in a few hours, which means 512GB would be filled in a day (and I'm still not particularly attracted by video).

3. Pros need dual cards for safety.

4. We have to see how reliable they are: if a card faults, I can easily replace it; if a soldered chip fails, I have to go to tech assistance.

5. Download transfer. The fastest way to download to my laptop is to directly mount the card; with a soldered chip, cameras should implement fast interfaces such as Thunderbolt or the very latest USB versions.

 

Given that, none of the above issues is a showstopper... With time, they could be fixed. In the end, at least in the medium term, I see the thing a cost raiser, though.

[Rover]

Uh, this is bad for so many reasons... but Stoppingdown has nicely outlined most of them. It's no wonder that the phone producers are already trying to remove the SD slots but I hope that this process will never reach its end. I know I won't likely buy a phone/tablet without an SD slot, and it's not because of space issue - it's just that I need to transfer photos from the camera to the phone quite often, and OTG has its own drawbacks. Besides, connecting BOTH the camera and the phone to the computer for data transfer has its own drawbacks, in my case these are prohibitive.

 

Issue #4 from Stoppingdown's post is the one I had felt on my own hide: last February my phone's circuit board failed (I don't know exactly what went haywire; the takeaway was that the whole board had to be replaced because nobody would ever bother with desoldering flash storage chips and plugging them elsewhere to offload the data, if it's even possible). Anything that wasn't on the microSD card rejoined the great hunt in the sky. Now imagine if all the data was on a non-separable chip...  :ph34r:

[toni-a]

What if this chip was actually INSIDE a memory card, it will be the core of the card itself, a faster and higher storage card, that can tolerate many and many read/write  passes, who would say no ?

[JJ_SO]

toni-A, you're amazing when you get to go in phantasizing mode. What difference is there between your idea and a normal memory card?

 

Rover, I think, Apple never offered an iPhone or iPad with additonal memory card, some people were compalining about. I think 8 or 16GB  (with the first iPhones) are pretty ridiculous, given the price of the unit.

 

But in Apple's very wet and weird dreams, people will use iCloud and buy their diskspace there. Meaning the devices will come with limited memory space and need to be online. This scenario frightens me - I don't see me as supplier of personal data for intransparent purposes.

 

There's already a 400 GB Micro SD card.

 

The idea of a hard soldered memory and additionally a card slot for backup, together with a fast USB-C connector might have speed advantage - at least in read speed. I think, it will come to smartphones if these start to do 4K video seriously. 

[Rover]

Joachim, that's one of the (many) reasons I never buy any of the Stubs lest I get screwed six ways from Sunday. And while I'm using a cloud service to back up my data, I'd be dead before that becomes my main, much less my only, means of storing my data. Thankfully I don't really do a whole lot of work on my smartphone, and when I do, it's mostly only until I can get to a proper PC.  I like being able to access (most of) my archive from anywhere, of course.

[mst]

Rover, I think, Apple never offered an iPhone or iPad with additonal memory card, some people were compalining about. I think 8 or 16GB  (with the first iPhones) are pretty ridiculous, given the price of the unit.

Right, iOS devices never had any card slots.

However, the smallest iPhone 2G had 4 GB, and by that time (10 years ago), the amount that was offered in the higher models should be seen in the context of that time. 16 GB was quite something back then.
 

But in Apple's very wet and weird dreams, people will use iCloud and buy their diskspace there. Meaning the devices will come with limited memory space and need to be online. This scenario frightens me - I don't see me as supplier of personal data for intransparent purposes.

This is not originally Apple's dream, nor is it uniquely their's. And clouds can primarily be used to synchronize data (not necessarily lots of data) between devices. Again, Google had that idea first (with Calendar, Contacts, Docs,...)
 
And given the amount of memory they offer in current models (up to 256 GB on iPhone, 512 GB in iPad), Apple does not seem to rely solely on selling their dream

Personally (warning, you might consider this a fanboy's defense talk), I never missed a card slot on any iOS device. iPhone and iPad regularly back up all data once they're on my home wifi (locally, not to the cloud), so I never had to fear loss of data.

[JJ_SO]

I only missed a real SD card slot - and bought adaptors for my iPod devices. Yes, the ones with mechanical drives.

 

Pity is, that all these adaptors and additonal cables Apple is going to sell for big money are becoming obsolete quickly. I have a drawer full of white cable + adaptor stuff. Anybody interested in old firewire chargers or radios, microphones, drop me a line ^_^ . These days I also don't miss card slots - since I bascially use backup cards in the second slots when abroad.

 

And I just recently got an outdated MacBook Air with a card slot and USB-3.0 sockets. That's now replacing the i-devices and will be enough to do some ratings and basic editing. Meanwhile the project export from Capture One is sort of working.

[toni-a]

toni-A, you're amazing when you get to go in phantasizing mode. What difference is there between your idea and a normal memory card? .

None no difference, that's why even if it won't be a chip inside the device this technologic advance is still interesting, how does that put me in phantasy mode ? (FWIW there's no English word as phantasizing)

[JJ_SO]

I'm so sorry to have overstressed your fantasy with phantasms of fantasizing. If it makes you feel better, I just say you're fantasizing.  You often start threads which I don't feel not even remotely being of interest in a LENS forum. And I recall a couple of posts where there was no punctuation marks. 5 breathless lines, one sentence.

 

But I don't want to lecture you about English as it's not my native language. Yours? Thought so.

 

There's also afaik no expression like "None no difference" - except there would be a comma in between. But to be honest, the comma is the least of my comprehension problems with your texts.