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Standard Brewing For PC Card Replacement 'Newcard'
winston_pr writes "The details on the successor to the PC Card is starting to take form with details being given in this article at Nikkei Japan. The standard is scheduled to be finalized in 2003, while the first PCs with NEWCARD slots are expected to ship in the second half of 2004. Will this mean the end of all these crazy SD-card connection based peripherals?"
This is a new standard to replace the old standard being created by the same association (PCMCIA) as the old standard. This new standard will allow gigabit ethernet on a card and will be much slimmer than the old cards. They are also talking about making it built into slimline desktops.
Most modern laptops seem to come with an array of smartmedia, compact flash, USB, Firewire, integrated 802.11, and integrated ethernet, so I don't see what the big deals is. Granted, it's nice to be able to swap things into the computer, bit if excessive numbers of dongles are going to be required, just give me the device in USB or firewire, and let the device be the dongle. That way I don't have to carry around this metal wafer-type box too.
the only two PCMCIA devices that I use on my laptop regularly (which is two years old or more) is the wireless ethernet adapter, which doesn't have a dongle as such, and the compact flash reader, because the laptop is too old to have these features built in. Next unit I buy will probably have them integrated.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I have not noticed the bandwidth limits of my pcmcia card. Granted I don't run a gig-bit ethernet, video equipment (firewire takes care of it), or scsi cards, but I don't use my laptop to do that kind of stuff. What I have noticed is the slowness of my laptop hard drive, which will not be able to handle all this new bandwith anyways. Though it is always nice to have more bandwith and smaller cards, there are more important things that need to addressed.
P.S.
I hope this NEWCARD uses less power.
because there are millions of laptops that are not equipped with USB 2 ports. Thats why there are PCMCIA USB 2 cards.
Many laptops have only 1 USB port( those made before 2002).
If you already have a USB mouse, where can you plug in that webcam, USB external keyboard etc?
Many laptops made before 2002 do not have Firewire ports. If you want to use the iPod and camcorders, you need a Firewire PCMCIA card.
Take 56k modems and 10/100 ethernet ports. Again, older laptops do not have them onboard. You need PCMCIA cards for that.
Then you have the case of wi-fi. Unless your laptop is a Centrino, there is no way of going wifi without a wireless card.
Firewire 800 is "only" in the Macs now. It might come to the PC soon but it will take a while to come to laptops(~6 months). Firewire 400 is the norm for laptops.
No...
In summary you will now have to ditch all your old grotty cards to get *NEW* cards! New Mobo, new cards, full employment, a chicken in every garage, etc. And you thought you actually had choice in these things?
Further summarized...
All your base are belong to us!
Yes, this means crap like WinModems which may be the only choice for the new standard paint buyers further into a corner, as manufacturers could give a care less as they try to compete in a highly commoditized market.
Whee.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar