Tech Trend: Big Storage, Small Cards

Minuscule microSD cards offer 1GB of storage.

Andrew Brandt

Think the memory card in your camera or MP3 player is small? Well, you ain't seen nothin' yet. At only 15mm by 11mm, and a mere 1mm thick, SanDisk's fingernail-size microSD removable flash memory cards are unbelievably tiny. Originally designed for Motorola for use in the company's line of multimedia cell phones, microSD Cards should appear this year in several new multimedia-enhanced phones.

By the end of March, SanDisk says, it will sell 1GB versions of the microSD for about $75, which is roughly the price you'd pay for the same capacity in a much-larger CompactFlash or standard SD Card. The card will come with an adapter that lets it fit into a standard SD Card slot, so you can plug it into a more conventional reader or into a PDA or music player that has only an SD Card slot.