Quick Look: Lexar Professional CFexpress Type A Card GOLD Series + CFexpress Type A/SD Card Reader

[VSG]

Lexar aims to take over the increasingly popular CFexpress market with its new Type A GOLD series memory cards that promise to be the world's fastest while costing less than the competition too. We put it to the test today and pair it with the simultaneously released CFexpress Type A/SD card reader too.

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[Chaitanya]

Nice to see hybrid USB connector on one end of USB cable.

 

[VSG]

Nice to see hybrid USB connector on one end of USB cable.

Yup, I want to see this adopted across the board for all peripheral USB cables.

 

[Ferrum Master]

It is still way artifically overpriced to even be recommended. I would rudely say choke on them and still use UHS-II card.

The advanced high res/fps modes enter a realm where external recorders are being used in a rig setup. 160GB ain't serious space for those things too, so it ends up being an absurd product. During the shoot hey guys wait, I need to reload my dementic CFxa card, we will fix and clip that in post. No worries.

Just for faster buffer clearing? My A7m4 does not need that.

This thing really is questionable... especially for the price of a faster 2TB nvme drive. You can use those via adapters and in a rig setup it is doable, but money talks, the video modes still will be locked as camera validates the storage and asks for the paid premium tax bit, the memorystick vibes.

 

[VSG]

It is still way artifically overpriced to even be recommended. I would rudely say choke on them and still use UHS-II card.

The advanced high res/fps modes enter a realm where external recorders are being used in a rig setup. 160GB ain't serious space for those things too, so it ends up being an absurd product. During the shoot hey guys wait, I need to reload my dementic CFxa card, we will fix and clip that in post. No worries.

Just for faster buffer clearing? My A7m4 does not need that.

This thing really is questionable... especially for the price of a faster 2TB nvme drive. You can use those via adapters and in a rig setup it is doable, but money talks, the video modes still will be locked as camera validates the storage and asks for the paid premium tax bit, the memorystick vibes.

CFExpress Type-A is a weird spot though owing to the smaller market and manufacturers alike. I wouldn't dismiss it outright since there are some cameras coming that only take this form factor, but of course I get your point about when you can do either this or SD.

 

[Ferrum Master]

CFExpress Type-A is a weird spot though owing to the smaller market and manufacturers alike. I wouldn't dismiss it outright since there are some cameras coming that only take this form factor, but of course I get your point about when you can do either this or SD.

The thing is it is artificial limitation, it doesn't deserve any praise. I guess Sony is to blame at most part, but the added margin is so attractive others do it also the same way.

You know a Samsung PM991 2230 nvme cards exist. Those are smaller single chip drives available up to 1TB, used in mobile areas like in Surfaces... and is faster than this card, I suspect much cooler too. There are no real technological issues having large sized CFxa cards. Slapt that IC on CFxA PCB and write the right eeprom flags = works.

 

[VSG]

The thing is it is artificial limitation, it doesn't deserve any praise. I guess Sony is to blame at most part, but the added margin is so attractive others do it also the same way.

You know a Samsung PM991 2230 nvme cards exist. Those are smaller single chip drives available up to 1TB, used in mobile areas like in Surfaces... and is faster than this card, I suspect much cooler too. There are no real technological issues having large sized CFxa cards. Slapt that IC on CFxA PCB and write the right eeprom flags = works.

Yet there isn't a product like this, so I can only go with what's in the market.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Yet there isn't a product like this, so I can only go with what's in the market.

You don't need to buy and even recommend any product available in the market just because it exists, especially in current state ie price and anemic storage capacity. We have an option to use conventional SD Cards and it is enough. The unlocked videographer features really are questionable considering the amount of users who will actually use them. They would sport a Panasonic GH6 for example or some BlackMagic etc device.