SanDisk Releasing 4 GB microSDHC Card Later This Year

SanDisk has announced plans to release a 4-gigabyte (GB) microSD High Capacity (SDHC) card at some point later this year. Currently, the highest capacity card using this format is 2 GB.

Despite being the world’s smallest removable flash memory card, a 4 GB microSDHC card will be able to store more than 1,000 digital songs or more than 2,000 high-resolution pictures or up to 8 hours of MPEG-4 video.

What's SDHC?

The primary goal of the SDHC Memory Card format is to expand SD card capacity beyond 2 GB.

Although there are already SD and miniSD cards on the market with more than a 2 GB capacity, in order to reach these capacities they have to be formatted with FAT32, which is not part of the SD specification. Therefore many consumer electronic devices can not read these cards, as they support only FAT16.

The SDHC format supports cards up to 32 GB in capacity.

Unfortunately, handheld and smartphone makers are moving somewhat slowly to support the SDHC standard. That's why there would be no point in SanDisk releasing its 4 GB microSDHC card now, as there are no devices that can use it.

However, SanDisk says it is making engineering samples of this card available to compaines who are developing models that support it.

There is no word yet what SanDisk will charge for its upcoming 4 GB microSDHC when it is released.

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