Mobile Tech

While I’ve been touring eastern Asia, some changes have occurred in the memory card scene. 16GB micro-SDHC memory cards are available. Today you can actually get a CLASS 2 card for a good price (~$55 USD). PDAs, as well as mobile phones, are the best target for these cards.

These micro-SDHC cards are practical in so many ways. Because of their small size they can be used almost anywhere. I’ve found myself using a microSDHC card in my Canon camera (supports SDHC cards) only so I can read them in my PDAs (HTC Kaiser, HTC Touch Pro), both have a micro-SDHC drive.

Still, 8GB micro-SDHC cards are a better choice if you want to save some money. These cards have become ridiculesly cheap (~$15 USD). It’s great news because that means 32GB micro-SDHC cards are on their way to the market, hopefully we will see them by the third quarter of 2009.

The main reason NOT to buy 8GB micro-SDHC cards is that many of the devices, mobile phones and PDAs require to open the back-cover of the battery in order to change them. Some even require ejecting the battery, which means you have to restart your device, thus losing your work. In that aspect, 16GB micro-SDHC cards are way better (but, of course, not enough).

Currently, the only brand available is SanDisk 16GB micro-SDHC CLASS 2. I’ve yet to find any other brand or class on the market.

Some links for purchasing these cards are attached to the next part of this article.

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Yes, it is true. Although most of you will not be surprised by this shocking “news”, China is flooded with fake high-capacity memory cards, especially SanDisk and Kingston.

I have recently come back from a tour around China. Looking for a high capacity memory card was one of the most exhausting tasks that I had (excluding the task of communicating in Chinese, of course). I’ve been in several big cities around the country. Among them are Beijing, X’ian, Chengdu, Kunming and others. As I’ve heard (but did not check for myself), it is worse around Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shenzhen which are, by rumors, the main source for fake merchendise in China.

The price for a fake 8GB microSDHC SanDisk memory card was 200 RMB as of September-November 2008. These are not real SanDisk cards, but 4GB microSDHC cards loaded with a virus. The same goes for fake Kingston 8GB microSDHC memory cards.

When you plug these cards into your computer, there are two options: Either your anti-virus will detect the hidden autorun.inf file or not. In case of detection, the file will be erased by the anti-virus, but will re-create itself during the next insertion. It cannot be deleted since the manufacturer messed with the memory card’s controller. The main purpose of this virus is to conceal the true capacity of the card.

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When you’re traveling frequently, you know how important is the weight of your bags and suitcases. It can help you keeping your back safe, and stay in the boundaries of the airlines companies regulations.

A few months ago I found a great tool that made my life easier. It’s called a digital hanging scale. It’s a relatively small device that has a small hook at the bottom. You can hang on the hook whatever you want – bags, suitcases or anything else that can be attached to it. Heck, you can even weigh fish when you go fishing.

It supports multiple units: kg, lb, oz. You can weigh upto 40 kilograms on it which is quite impressive. Accuracy is 20 grams. It has a Tare function, that enables you to use a basket to weigh multiple items, while excluding the basket’s weight.

The best thing is it’s small enough to carry anywhere you want. However, it’s not too small. I’d recommend taking it when you have a large suitcase.

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Firefox – the best free browser in the entire world wide web. It was great in version 2. Now it’s even better in version 3.0!

The previous version of Firefox worked perfectly well for me during the past few years. Sure, it had a few glitches that I had to live with, but overall it was worth it. Whenever I needed to browse a website on Internet Explorer, I used the IE Tab plug-in.

However, version 2 wasn’t all good. As time went by and I installed more and more plug-ins, undesired phenomena showed up. The most annoying one was when Firefox would completely freeze itself for about twenty seconds or more. Slow computers would probably get stuck for a longer time.

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When you’re traveling with mobile devices, electricity is one of the most important factors to take into account. No matter how advanced is the technology you carry, if you can’t power it up, it becomes useless.

4xAA USB battery case – version 2

I’ve been making some research over the past few years looking for good solutions to power up my devices. Selecting a mobile power source is really a question of how much current and voltage your electric device consumes, and how much weight you’re willing to carry.

When I travel, I usually carry with me a PDA, a camera operated by 4xAA batteries, a hard-drive based OTG backup device and a 4xAA charger. During my previous journey, I hacked a 4xAA battery case that I recieved along with my ELOOK LK-A6 OTG device, so it could also charge my PDA (back then it was AXIM X5). It required soldering a 3.5mm DC plug directly into the battery contacts. It worked great, but things changed, and I needed some adjustments.

For my next journey, this setup has not changed much. I’m still carrying a 4xAA based camera, the ELOOK LK-A6 (unfortunately nothing better has come out yet), and a new PDA, the HTC TYTN II.

This time I decided to make the battery case more USB-oriented. I drilled a hole in the case, soldered a USB port that I excavated out of an old USB hub. I also soldered a USB extension cord directly to the battery contacts.

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The evolution continues! PNY 32GB SDHC cards are now sold in Amazon for a surprisingly reasonable price of $150 $110. Comparing to the $700 Panasonic card, this is really a good price.

Lately, prices of the 16GB SDHC cards have been dropping as well. Clearly, this is a result of these newly released 32GB SDHC cards.

Link to the PNY 32GB SDHC card in Amazon ($110)

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Great news. The newest and latest 32GB SDHC cards from SanDisk and Panasonic are now being sold on eBay. I assume that during the next week or two we’ll start seeing them available in other online stores.

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It looks like a SD card, but it can attach to a USB port and the best part is – it can read micro-SDHC cards, although not specified on the box.

This adapter will convert your micro-SD or micro-SDHC cards to a SD card so you can use in your camera. It will also convert it to a tiny USB drive so you can connect it directly to your computer using a USB port.

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Panasonic announced a few months ago their latest SDHC card with the amazing capacity of 32GB. It was supposed to start selling in April, but now it looks like it will only be available for purchase by the beginning of May 2008. I still haven’t seen those SanDisk 32GB SDHC cards being sold, and we are getting closer to May.

The only bad news about this card is its expected retail price: 700$ for a Class 6, while SanDisk’s Class 4 card is expected to be sold for half the price 350$. These prices are expected to drop within a couple of months, dragging lower capacity cards, and especially the 16GB SDHC to an even lower price than what we see today.

Now lets wait six months to see what will become of those 64GB cards we all wait for.

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In April 2008 you will be able to buy a brand new Sandisk 32GB SDHC card. This is really good news, although the price for this card will be quite expensive. So why is it good news?

1. A new 32GB SDHC in the market means that 16GB, 8GB and 4GB SDHC cards will drop prices to make room for their new friend.

2. This means 64GB SDHC is the next step. We might already see them in the market by the end of 2008 or the first quarter of 2009. Who knows.

The interesting part is that although those tiny micro SDHC cards are one quarter of a full-size SDHC card, they are already available for sale in the form of 8GB micro SDHC, by Sandisk as well. It is probable that we are going to see by the end of 2008 16GB micro SDHC.

Since the new SDHC cards are evolving so fast, pretty soon someone will have to answer the question regarding the limitation of FAT32. I’m not sure if it really is a problem, but the maximum limitation of FAT32 when formatting a partition with Microsoft Windows is 32GB. You actually can format a FAT32 to a size bigger than 32GB using an external application, such as Partition Magic, but the big question is – will those SDHC compatible devices have problems reading those partitions? Will manufacturers force us yet again to dump our old devices from last year and buy new ones, only to use those 64GB or 128GB SDHC cards? I really hope not, but only time will tell.

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