A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices like smartphones with the same or more capabilities and features of dedicated cameras. High-end, high-definition dedicated cameras are still commonly used by professionals and those who desire to take higher-quality photographs.
PC Card is a parallel peripheral interface for laptop computers and PDAs. The PCMCIA originally introduced the 16-bit ISA-based PCMCIA Card in 1990, but renamed it to PC Card in March 1995 to avoid confusion with the name of the organization. The CardBus PC Card was introduced as a 32-bit version of the original PC Card, based on the PCI specification. The card slots are backward compatible for the original 16-bit card, older slots are not forward compatible with newer cards.
The Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, originally launched by Sony in late 1998. In addition to the original Memory Stick, this family includes the Memory Stick PRO, a revision that allows greater maximum storage capacity and faster file transfer speeds; Memory Stick Duo, a small-form-factor version of the Memory Stick ; the even smaller Memory Stick Micro (M2), and the Memory Stick PRO-HG, a high speed variant of the PRO to be used in high-definition video and still cameras.
A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras as well as in many early games consoles such as the Nintendo Wii. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a socket instead of protruding USB flash drives.
CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994.
Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary, non-volatile, flash memory card format the SD Association (SDA) developed for use in portable devices.
In computing, a removable media is a data storage media that is designed to be readily inserted and removed from a system. Most early removable media, such as floppy disks and optical discs, require a dedicated read/write device to be installed in the computer, while others, such as USB flash drives, are plug-and-play with all the hardware required to read them built into the device, so only need a driver software to be installed in order to communicate with the device. Some removable media readers/drives are integrated into the computer case, while others are standalone devices that need to be additionally installed or connected.
MultiMediaCard, officially abbreviated as MMC, is a memory card standard used for solid-state storage. Unveiled in 1997 by SanDisk and Siemens, MMC is based on a surface-contact low-pin-count serial interface using a single memory stack substrate assembly, and is therefore much smaller than earlier systems based on high-pin-count parallel interfaces using traditional surface-mount assembly such as CompactFlash. Both products were initially introduced using SanDisk NOR-based flash technology.
A flash drive is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and usually weighs less than 30 g (1 oz). Since first offered for sale in late 2000, the storage capacities of USB drives range from 8 megabytes to 256 gigabytes (GB), 512 GB and 1 terabyte (TB). As of 2023, 2 TB flash drives were the largest currently in production. Some allow up to 100,000 write/erase cycles, depending on the exact type of memory chip used, and are thought to physically last between 10 and 100 years under normal circumstances.
SmartMedia is an obsolete flash memory card standard owned by Toshiba, with capacities ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB. The format mostly saw application in the early 2000s in digital cameras and audio production. SmartMedia memory cards are no longer manufactured.
The xD-Picture Card is an obsolete form of flash memory card, used in digital cameras made by Olympus, Fujifilm, and Kodak during the 2000s. The xD in the xD-Picture Card stands for eXtreme Digital.
P2 is a professional digital recording solid-state memory storage media format introduced by Panasonic in 2004. The P2 card is essentially a RAID of Secure Digital (SD) memory cards with an LSI controller tightly packaged in a die-cast PC Card enclosure. The system includes cameras, decks as drop-in replacements for videotape decks, and a special 5.25-inch computer drive for random-access integration with non-linear editing systems (NLE). The cards can also be used directly where a PC card (PCMCIA) slot is available, as in most older notebook computers, as a normal hard disk drive, although a custom software driver must first be loaded.
Lexar International is a brand of flash memory products, formerly American-owned, now manufactured by the Chinese memory company, Longsys.
This table provides summary of comparison of various flash memory cards, as of 2017.
A datacard is an electronic card for data operations.
The Samsung SGH-i600 is a smartphone running Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition or Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard Edition, featuring HSDPA, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity.
The Nokia 6000 series or Classic Business series is range of mobile phones marketed by Nokia. This family of phones is notable for their conservative, unisex designs, making them popular with business users.
The SD Association (SDA) is an American nonprofit organization that sets standards for the SD memory card format. SanDisk, Panasonic (Matsushita), and Toshiba formed the SD Association in January 2000. In 2010, the SDA had approximately 1,000 member companies involved in the design and development of SD standards. Thousands of device models and hundreds of products across dozens of product categories integrate the small, removable memory cards.
The LG Versa (VX9600) is a mobile phone for use on the Verizon Wireless network. Like the LG Dare VX-9700, the Versa has a full touch screen and onscreen QWERTY keyboard. The Versa also accepts handwriting recognition or gesture control for entering phone numbers and typing. The phone includes a HTML mobile web web browser, a built-in MP3 music player, access to Verizon Wireless's VCAST multimedia services, and mobile e-mail services. The phone includes a 2.0-mp digital camera with zoom, autofocus, and flash. The phone also had a built-in camcorder. An expandable MicroSD card slot is included into the phone, though no MicroSD card is pre-installed into the device. The difference between the LG Dare and the Versa is that the Versa featured a unique, foldout QWERTY keyboard that was detachable. Originally included with the Versa, the QWERTY keyboard was no longer included and only available as an accessory at Verizon Wireless retail stores. The attachment also included send and end call keys so that the user could answer an incoming call even with the flip closed. The attachment also included an integrated LED display screen that displayed information such as the currently-playing music track, current time, current date, signal strength, type of CDMA signal that the phone was currently operating on, the network provider's name, and who is calling, should an incoming call come through when the case is attached and closed.
CFexpress is a standard for removable media cards proposed by the CompactFlash Association (CFA). The standard uses the NVM Express protocol over a PCIe 3.0 interface with 1 to 4 lanes where 1 GB/s data can be provided per lane. There are multiple form factors that feature different PCIe lane counts. One of the goals is to unify the ecosystem of removable storage by being compatible with standards already widely adopted, such as PCIe and NVMe. There already is a wide range of controllers, software and devices that use these standards, accelerating adoption.
USB card readers like this one typically implement the USB mass storage device class
Generic CompactFlash card reader with high-speed storage via USB2.0
Cardreader combined with floppy disk drive
