Ping M5ers

[NewQ]

Does the M5 take advantage of the faster SD cards (66x, etc)? Are there apps like VFSMark and CardSpeed on the PPC side that can test the speed of the different cards in the M5?

On the "other side", our 3600s don't take advantage of the faster SD cards and unfortunately you don't know that until after you shell out the extra cash for them. :mad:

[nparker13]

I was thinking the same thing. I am running out of space with all of my music and ...lets say movies... on one card with all my apps and stuff. With a new case on the way that has card holders, I was looking to more 1 gb sd cards.

Ecost has some inexpensive cards:
http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?DPNo=505821
http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?DPNo=493581

But I also thought that sandisk's sd usb card looked awesome:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000683026343/
I just dont know wehre to get one cheaply.

Keep us informed!

-nate

[AnswerDude]

Alternative to sd usb card is to get lexar jump drive trio. It's about $15.
http://www.lexar.com/readers/trio.html

[0gopogo]

Rick,Does the M5 take advantage of the faster SD cards (66x, etc)?I doubt it. The x50v does not, and I suspect this is universal for all PDAs Palm or PPC. According to some articles I've read card speed does make a difference in high-end digital cameras. In a USB2 card reader there are significant differences.Are there apps like VFSMark and CardSpeed on the PPC side that can test the speed of the different cards in the M5?Yes, for instance Spb Benchmark and Pocket Mechanic. The former is free for private use. A trial version of the latter exists.

A guy who goes by the user name of choirboy at the aximsite.com maintains a PDF file full of Pocket Mechanic results for various SD and CF card tested on various Axim handhelds. (You should be able to find it there by searching for "CF vs SD".) In a nutshell the plain and 32x Lexar SDs score very well, SanDisks suck. Across the Axim line of PDAs write speeds top out at just 120 kB/s! The best reported read speed is only 1.4 MB/s. That is less than 10x...

Personal tests with Sandisk 512 Ultra II and Simpletech 1GB (write/read defined sets of files - small/mixed/large sizes - to/from card) show throughputs similar to those produced by Pocket Mechanic when testing the Simpletech. But I cannot reproduce PoMech's ridiculously low results for the Ultra II.

[0gopogo]

Nate,

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Sandisk USB SD cards. Sandisk announced availability of their 2GB Ultra II cards last November. Now it's mid-March and shipments may begin next week, if we're lucky. Paper releases... Anyway, I'd rather go with 1 2GB instead of 2 1GBs. Did you try ripping a DVD movie to high-quality VGA and play it on your x50v using BetaPlayer? I find the quality far superior to any in-flight entertainment movies I have seen lately. (On a HP470? it should be even better thanks to the more brilliant colors.) But files get big - 2 hour-plus movies won't fit onto a 1GB card in good quality.

Did you consider CF cards? High speed 4GB and even 8GB versions are available from Sandisk and Lexar. I could easily fill an 8GB with MP3, JPG, AVI, and maps. Costs are prohibitive, though.

[0gopogo]

Originally posted by AnswerDude
Alternative to sd usb card is to get lexar jump drive trio. It's about $15.
http://www.lexar.com/readers/trio.html Same here. I use a Simpletech Bonzai thumb drive with my existing SD cards. Fast, stable, small, silver. It was 13$ plus shipping.

[nparker13]

Originally posted by 0gopogo
Nate,

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Sandisk USB SD cards. Sandisk announced availability of their 2GB Ultra II cards last November. Now it's mid-March and shipments may begin next week, if we're lucky. Paper releases... Anyway, I'd rather go with 1 2GB instead of 2 1GBs. Did you try ripping a DVD movie to high-quality VGA and play it on your x50v using BetaPlayer? I find the quality far superior to any in-flight entertainment movies I have seen lately. (On a HP470? it should be even better thanks to the more brilliant colors.) But files get big - 2 hour-plus movies won't fit onto a 1GB card in good quality.

Did you consider CF cards? High speed 4GB and even 8GB versions are available from Sandisk and Lexar. I could easily fill an 8GB with MP3, JPG, AVI, and maps. Costs are prohibitive, though.

Ive never ripped a dvd, but i watch tv shows from my BeyondTV machine, and i have it showsqueeze to x50v format (about 200 megs for a wmv show 1hr).

I like sd because i can use it interchangably with my iQue. I was looking at the cf, but i think multiple sds would be nice. I am getting an eb case with card holders, so i think thats the way im gonna go.

-nate

[NewQ]

0gopogo, I think you're correct.

We beat this to a pulp on the 3600 forum and to bring the members that missed that flurry here up-to-date using the link to the article you posted on that forum: here (http://www.auphanonline.com/articles/view.php?article_id=1498)
and the response to an email I sent the author:
"The cards _are_ faster when advertised. For example, the Ultra IIs are considerably faster than their “plain jane” counterparts. This is why I chose to use the Ultra IIs in the comparison- the regular cheaper Sandisks wouldn’t have been much of a challenge, it’s in a completely different class.

The controllers are the same across different yields. For example, the same controller may be used in a 1GB as a 2GB. Likewise, they may also have a second controller (a second product line) that will handle the 1GB, so they may address the different markets (high speed and premium or simply low priced budget concerned users).

ATP’s 1GB and 2GB SD cards use the same controller- and thus run at approximately the same speed (slight variables incumbent to all manufacturing processes may account for non-significant differences).

As for testing in a Palm-based environment, there is considerably more overhead and system bottlenecks that prevent testing the cards to their full capabilities. This is why you’re not recognizing the differences, the hardware platform they’re being tested on does not utilize the cards to their max capabilities. For example, it would be like having a high school student compare a Ferrari to a Honda instead of having a professional driver make the same test drive. One has the capabilities to recognize the high end abilities of the machine while the other simply does not.

This is why the review was conducted over a high speed USB 2.0 connection as opposed to a Palm-based environment."

His research never mentioned a PPC PDA at all. That's the reason for my question. I was hoping that Garmin would have improved on the 3600 when they made the M5, to utilize it. Redrawing maps and "finding" slows considerably using the huge map files that can be stored on the bigger cards.

I don't know what it will take, H/W or S/W changes, to utilize the speed of these cards in our "little friends". :rolleyes:
Thanks,