For all those who think Microdrive,DataPlay etc are going to be significant competitors in digicams to CF or Smartmedia, witness the following statement from a review of the New Nikon 880 dpreview.com
Microdrive fans will be disappointed to see the width of the CF slot, yep it's STILL type I, given the new battery design that's hardly surprising as I'd doubt the new battery could supply sufficient power to drive the camera and a Microdrive.
Whats happening here is that there is pressure on camera vendors to make smaller, lighter mass-market cameras (=under $1000), with a reasonable time between battery recharges.
Smaller cameras mean smaller batteries which mean that even as battery technology gets better, its at least partially cancelled out.
These pressures for small size and low battery consumption work against anything with a spinning disc, plus features such as zoom and LCD display compete for that precious electricity.
As a side effect, as fewer vendors put CFII slots in cameras (example, new high end digicams such as Nikon 880 & Kodak 4800) less will be sold, which makes it difficult to keep price low, and also, longer term, make a business case for manufacturing them. I cannot believe that IBM have not been talking to these vendors, but apparently Nikon and Kodak, to name two, aren't convinced.
BTW, either the Nikon 880 or the Kodak DC4800 will be my next digicam. I'm just waiting for the user reviews to hit the net before I buy. Both are amazing, with features not even in the most expensive pro digicams of only a couple of years back. One of these cameras is only about 10 Sandisk shares, or who knows, 5 by Christmas? (I can dream)
Tw |
