12 GB Compact Flash card

[astroview]

Pretec Electronics has introduced the world's first solid state CompactFlash memory card with a storage capacity of a whopping 12 GB. The card, which will be available by the second half of 2004, will sell for $9,999 USD. In conjunction with the announcement, Pretec also announced that it would reduce the price of its 6 GB CompactFlash from $7,499 USD to $3,499 USD.

http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/4906.html
Link doesn't really have much more info.

 

[Falloutboy]

damn thats big

 

[Lyfer]

Wow, $9,999 flashdrive. You should post this in hot deals.

 

[Lonyo]

Obviously just because it's big, not because it costs a lot to produce, or they couldn't knock the 6GB card down $4000 to less than half price.
Profit margins must be pretty big.

 

[Falloutboy]

well its doesn't cost much to make it costs alot to develop so the first people buying these things are paying for the R&D

 

[astroview]

Too bad the read/writes are so low on these compared to hard drives. I want a flash drive that can replace a HD!

 

[Falloutboy]

I just wish someone would comeup with a cheap solution so we can take 5 or 6 1 gig sticks of SDRAM and build a ram drive. then have a backup HD that will backup everything every few hours just incase the power goes out and the battery fails. would work awsome for a boot drive and whouldn't cost much more than 600-800 bucks. granted expensive but not so much that its out of reach for the high end gamer/ power user.

 

[EarthwormJim]

I think I'll buy a dozen.

 

[GnomeCop]

oh my god, who uses those things.

 

[heresiarh]

the price is insane. i feel so happy with my 512 right now!

 

[blurredvision]

Hmmmm, let's do some math. I have a Canon A300 3MP digicam, and previously purchased a 256MB CF card. With the detail and res all the way up, I can take a 149 pictures (this is the number the camera gives me, but the real world number is a bit higher).

Using basic math (i.e. 1GB = 1024MB, I believe that's right), I should be able to get 7,152 high detailed, 3MP quality pictures. I don't think I've possibly even gotten close to an 1/8th of that number since I've had the camera for a year now.

EDIT: Another crazy fact? The 12GB flashcard costs $9,999. I bought my 256MB flash card for $52 at newegg. I could equal the 12GB by buying 48 of the 256MB cards for $2,496. So whap happens to the extra $7,500??

 

[JYDog]

The only way to realistically drive these prices to near consumer level is for the manufactures to gamble a bit and mark the price artificially low(say $1000 for 12GB in quantities of 500 or 1000). This will make it easier to bring the economies of scale into their favor with a ten fold in sales.