Just wondering: how many folks are really interested in reviews that aim to analyse and portray all performance aspects of very similar performing products when price is probably the most important buying factor?

We’re looking today at more memory cards from the leaders in this field, SanDisk and ATP, but, unlike our last foray into this area, we’ll leave out the benchmark charts this time and just make some observations on flash memory cards.

We started out as a review site, keen to show all the technical ins- and outs of the products that were sent to us.

That’s fine when a technology is new and attracts predominantly the technically-minded but when products such as memory cards have well and truly been a mainstream commodity for quite some time, there is not a great deal to be gained from exhaustive reviews that will show some differences of course but not really significant ones.

We’ve done our own testing in the past and read countless other comparative reviews.

We’re becoming convinced that – unless there is a specific need for absolutely the ultimate in performance – price has a far greater influence on the buying decision than anything else.

Of course, there are differences in performance.

Sometimes, there are differences in reliability because of the technology or controller used.

But always we come across the issue of price.

New technology can command prices that only few can afford.

MMC and SD cards are not in this category even though the technology used in them and to manufacture them is constantly improving.

Reduced Size (RS-MMC) and Mini SD cards may be relatively new formats but is radically new technology involved here?

We’ll have a look at these cards in a moment.

On our desk are the following samples:

• SanDisk 1GB SD  

• ATP 1GB MMC

• ATP 1GB SD

• ATP 256 mini SD

• ATP 256 RS MMC

The SanDisk SD card – the world’s first one-gigabyter in production – demanded a cool $500 when it came out earlier this year.

A few months ago it officially carried a $350 price tag and now street pricing covers the whole range all the way down to the incredible sub-$100 level!

New in this card is the stackable packaging technology which primarily was developed by Sharp.

This low-cost and high-yield die-stacking process allows for cheaper and higher capacity flash cards.

Already about a year ago the SD format became the most popular flash memory card in the US. Thousands of products use the ubiquitous SD card now so SanDisk’s latest entries will have an eager market.

Expect SanDisk to stay the market leader it has become with its ambitious plans for the novice-friendly Shoot & Store cards that will be available just everywhere.

We can see that, next to sharp pricing, availability will be a big factor. If you can buy a “film card” at your corner store or news agent just as easily as you bought your Kodak film, a whole new market is opening up.

Particularly when people start to use these cards as photography albums, having a box full of them…

SanDisk’s latest announcement offers 32MB cards for just 10 bucks. And I read this a day after hearing on the news that Kodak Australia will close its plant here with the loss of 600 jobs.

Sign of the (digital) times, I reckon.

Before we move on to the ATP samples which include the even smaller Reduced Size MMC and Mini SD cards, let me emphasise that SanDisk also produce a whole line-up of various small format cards, including the TransFlash which is used by Motorola in their 3G phones.

They even make combo cards like the Wi-Fi SD combined with a decent 256MB.

ATP is mainly known for its MultiMediaCards. They were the first to bring the 1GB MMC to market.

MMC cards, a bit thinner than their SD counterparts, should be a bit cheaper than the Secure Digital format.

Emphasis is on “should” as it may not always be the case even though there are no royalty payments to be paid by a manufacturer for using this format.

MMC units can be used in SD slots but not vice-versa. In addition, estimates by Samsung indicate that more than half of the handsets sold in 2006 will feature only MMC slots.

So we may safely assume that the MMC market is going to see significant growth in the next couple of years.

The same may be said for the Reduced Size MMC and Mini SD cards. Why the moniker: ”Reduced Size” (I’ve also seen it spelled “Reduce-Sized” and “Reduced-Sized” in ATP’s literature) and not just Mini for both smaller formats is beyond me.

Personally, I’m a bit wary of ever-reducing and different formats such as TransFlash and other miniscule cards that are just a bit different to be different it seems.

Someone just brought out a 19 in 1 card reader and I thought a 6 in 1 was already ridiculous!

It’s confusing, bewildering and totally un-necessary IMTIOLIO! (In My Take-It Or Leave-It Opinion)

We should be able to standardize on 4 or 5 different formats. Market forces alone cannot do that without having created a lot of consumer confusion in the meantime.

Just look at the bewildering array of adaptors for power and phone plugs you need to carry along when you travel abroad and you know we still have a long way to go.

For the time being the RS-MMC and Mini SD cards have found their niche market, mainly in mobile phones.

It won’t be long before we have 1GB capacities here as well now that the first 512MB unit was announced recently.

The good thing is that RS-MMC is compatible with the existing MMC standard and the Mini SD will go into SD slots with an adaptor.

ATP and SanDisk are well qualified to deliver high quality cards of whatever format with their superior manufacturing.

These two companies will be pushing the capacity and price boundaries for quite some time to come yet.

All of that is good, very good for us consumers.