New PSP Memory Cards Coming from SanDisk

Maker of memory cards announces a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo Card as well as a 1GB card which reportedly gets higher data transfer rates.

SanDisk yesterday at E3 unveiled two new and distinctly different Memory Stick Pro Duo cards for the Sony PlayStation Portable. The first is capable of holding 4GB of data, while the other is reportedly the world’s fastest dedicated gaming card for the PSP.

The 4GB SanDisk Memory Stick Pro Duo Card, said its maker, will be available this month for a price of $219.99 and joins a line of cards which start with a storage capacity of 256MB. This particular card is colored red and will reportedly be capable of holding up to 64 hours of MP3 music tracks, 20 or more hours of movies/videos/film trailers, 12 hours of game saves, or 4,000 digital still images.

SanDisk’s other new card announced at E3 is the $84.99 RapidGX, available in early summer. This 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo card, when used with the bundled, optimized MicroMate Memory Stick PRO Duo card reader, can get estimated read/write speeds of up to 15MB per second, which is about twice the read/write speeds of the PSP when the device is hooked up directly to a computer. The reader includes a USB connector for plugging directly into a PC’s USB port, while the card itself incorporates technology similar to Sandisk’s Extreme III flash card line for professional photographers. This supposedly translates into speeds up to three times faster than those of a standard Memory Stick Pro Duo card.

The RapidGX also comes with PSP content management software customized by Mediafour.