Don't forget the less flash applications: Your car, your microwave, your fridge, your security system, even your coffee maker, to name a few.
Your scenerio sounds great but what if while you're out of the house taking pictures, your wife at home wants to use the camcorder at that same moment than that MS stick gets right back to $75 (from $50). The son or daughter also wants to use that MS stick for their MP3 music while mom and dad are having fun with their Sony toys. Now that cheap piece of MS is back to where it was $150 ea.
This doesn't really have much to do with Memory Stick, but flash media in general. There's no reason your palmtop, laptop, desktop, cell phone, MP3 player, camera, and camcorder can't all have CompactFlash slots. The difference is, that'll only happen with Memory Stick if your palmtop, laptop, desktop, cell phone, MP3 player, camera, and camcorder are all made by Sony. This sort of convergence would be much more likely to happen with an open standard (CF or SM).
Mmmmm... maybe, and maybe not.
...and I aggree with you too, Martin. Memory is memory. I don't know of any complaint or evidence that CF or SmartMedia are inferior to MS or vice versa. I'm not bashing the MS, just HATE the way SONY has us by the balls with their pricing. The only reason I bought my S70 is that BestBuy had a special 2-year same as cash plus I had a 10% off coupon at the time most dealers sold the S70 for $800. The S70 has it pros and cons but I never complaint about those (if I remember correctly), just hate to buy that extra and ridiculously priced MS/battery.
So if you retain that ability to choose, then how is anyone "controlled" by Sony?
In what way are you held captive, other than by the excellent image quality? And if the latter is the case, the rest is really only an auxilliary point.
The way i look at it is that i could have double the number of MS and therefore more pictures i could take if Sony priced the stick more reasonable. Have you ever look at the price different between Iomega PhotoShow and Minds@Work Digital Wallet? Why are they so much different? Isn't it because of Sony proprietary MS. Yes, I know there are and more companies looking into making MS compatible devices. But that's only rumors and speculations. Show me the real devices.
Believe me, I've thought about that so many many times. The reason I still have the S70 is i can't stand the thought of losing so much money from the S70+2 MS+2 batt.+stick reader for the short time I've own my camera.If it is major source of contention, then have you considered
selling the S70, its accessories and moving on so as to protect the
family valuables?
I haven't checked lately, but what do you think you could get for all of that... Reasonably? And what would you LIKE to get for it?
You can still choose, I just dont like the behaviour of companies like Sony, Microsoft and many others trying to put some control their customer. They tries to make you stick and buy their products and become dependent. Almost every companies do that of course, but some are worse than others.So if you retain that ability to choose, then how is anyone
"controlled" by Sony?
Certainly right, but not completely memory is an investment, if you have CF or SM there is a big chance you can still use it for you next camera. I dont care what brand my camera is as long as its good, in the future if I want to sell my camera and buy another brand I can keep my CF. Try that with Sony, if you buy Sony camera now and buy brand Z camera later will you MS fit in it?
Arent there some cams only use CF or SM? U may still stuck with one brand or one series.You can still choose, I just dont like the behaviour of companiesSo if you retain that ability to choose, then how is anyone
"controlled" by Sony?
like Sony, Microsoft and many others trying to put some control
their customer. They tries to make you stick and buy their products
and become dependent. Almost every companies do that of course, but
some are worse than others.
Certainly right, but not completely memory is an investment, if you
have CF or SM there is a big chance you can still use it for you
next camera. I dont care what brand my camera is as long as its
good, in the future if I want to sell my camera and buy another
brand I can keep my CF. Try that with Sony, if you buy Sony camera
now and buy brand Z camera later will you MS fit in it?
One brand? no way. I use Nikon, I can switch to Canon, Casio, Epson, Kodak, Olympus, Pentax, etc anytime and still be able to use my CF. You can use SM for Fuji, Olympus, Ricoh, Agfa. One brand?
While I agree that 64meg is not really enough, it is misleading to equate it to 1 1/2 rolls of film because it usually represents all keepers due to the ability to instantly delete those pics you don't like. If 1 1/2 rolls of film is, say, 36 pictures, how many physical rolls of film would one go through with his P&S to get 36 keepers ? For me, probably 10 rolls or more (I'm not much of a photog).
Maybe. But there are stories about CF, for example, where people have used them to carry around Word files and such-like, without their camera/music player noticing. I don't think any of the major media formats provides a big obstacle to that.
But if it's important enough to consumers, they will.
Possible… but who are the manufacturers that want to participate? Sony, Sony, Sony, a few other companies with a half-hearted commitment (I can't think of anyone else that's actually shipped a Memory Stick product — it's just lip service), and did I mention Sony?
Possible. As Phil noted in his recent news article, Memory Stick is overtaking SmartMedia. I wouldn't be surprised if SmartMedia dies out pretty soon. Its only original advantage was price, and CF is now cheaper (in my liimited observation). Memory Stick has a good deal more goiing for it. And good head-to-head competition between CF and MS will definitely be good for both.
Again, I would see that as a problem for SmartMedia but not CompactFlash.
