To the sound of a loud collective sigh from millions of photographers, Nikon continues to extol the virtues of yet another memory card format, the newly developed XQD standard.
The new format was announced in December 2011 by the CompactFlash Association, and is physically slightly larger than a SD card.
The speed of the memory card is claimed to be 1.4 times nippier than a Compact Flash A card, offering transfer rates up to “1 Gbps (125MB/s) write and read” via PCIe interface.
Only Nikon
The only camera with XQD support announced so far is Nikon’s flagship DSLR, the Nikon D4 (which also has Compact Flash support), and thus far, only Sony is manufacturing the things, with big name manufacturers including Kingston, Lexar and Sandisk notably absent from the XQD party.
Although Nikon seem keen to promote XQD card, it won’t be included in their new semi-pro D800 camera.
Another card, another wallet
No other camera manufacturers have said that they intend to adopt the XQD memory card format yet, and we doubt if many photographers are relishing the prospect of having to invest in yet another expensive new memory card format.
[Via]
A couple of pins in my SLR’s Compact Flash slot got bent, rendering it unusable. Luckily it has an XD slot as well, although XD cards only come in 2GB size.
Does this XQD use nightmare pins, or safer contact strips?
Good point Yanis. Sony’s product page is here Fri 2nd March – http://www.sony.net/Products/memorycard/en_us/xqd/index.html – but I can’t see a side on view to see what the connectors are.
I’ve just found a (slow loading) video here – let me see if that offers any more info.
http://hq.update.sony.net.edgesuite.net/en/memorycard/video/xqd-e.wmv
Ouch! That video wasn’t good for my hangover.
There’s nothing in there to show off the connectors, although it does remind me that no one’s laptops will be able to read this new format without lugging about an oh-so-easily forgotten/lost adapter.