The display resolution rush presents a number of technical challenges. Just yesterday, DisplayPort 1.3 addressed the bandwidth issue, but there is more to be concerned about. One of those issues is video recording, for which you need fast storage. Several mobile phones already support recording 4K video, but the time intervals for recording with these are rather limited due to the lack of speedy storage options. For SanDisk, the fastest MicroSD card you could buy would transfer up to 95 MB/s, although it only came in up to 16 GB capacities – until now. SanDisk has announced the Extreme Pro 32 GB and 64 GB MicroSD cards, which are UHS-I compliant and capable of reading up to 95 MB/s and writing up to 90 MB/s.
It's true that 128 GB MicroSD cards are already on the market, but they aren't nearly as fast. The higher transfer rates might not seem relevant for transferring music to your phone, for example, and you might have patience for installing applications, but when it comes to 4K video recording there are certain minimum transfer speeds that you'll need in order to be able to keep up. That's also SanDisk's target group here – users who record 4K video with their mobile phones.
Performance aside, there is another aspect about these cards that's important to note: their resistance to harsh environments. SanDisk claims that they're able to operate in temperature ranges of -25 C through 85 C and that they can be submerged in 1 m of salt water for up to three days straight and remain operational after drying.
We've reached out to SanDisk for information on pricing and will let you know when we hear back.
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