Quick Look: Lexar Professional CFexpress Type B Card DIAMOND Series + CFexpress Type B Card Reader

[VSG]

Lexar aims to take over the increasingly popular CFexpress market with its new Type B DIAMOND series memory cards that promise high performance, taking full advantage of the accompanying USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 card reader. It's a product directed at content creators shooting and recording RAW 4K/8K videos where performance and reliability matter most.

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[Chaitanya]

I have read user reviews questioning overall durability of new CFexpress readers, would be possible to do a follow up review 6 months or so down the line how they hold up?

 

[VSG]

I have read user reviews questioning overall durability of new CFexpress readers, would be possible to do a follow up review 6 months or so down the line how they hold up?

Sure, I'll probably be using this often anyway so if you can ask me about it in 6 months time then I'll have an answer for you. I don't see anything especially faulty here so far.

 

[thewan]

Dear TPU, if this person is going to be reviewing external storage solutions alot, please get him a system with USB 4/Thunderbolt for the long term.
For the shorter term, one of those PCIE USB C 20GBPS (3.2 Gen 2x2 anyone?) from the likes of ORICO only costs some ~30USD where i come from, so it shouldn't be too expensive on his side of the world either.

 

[Mussels]

2GB/s?
I'm having an old man moment, i remember my first digital camera and its 16MB memory card


SD cards are the best way to show how tech has progressed over the decades as they've changed capacity, speeds and file systems while retaining backwards compatibility

 

[VSG]

2GB/s?
I'm having an old man moment, i remember my first digital camera and its 16MB memory card


SD cards are the best way to show how tech has progressed over the decades as they've changed capacity, speeds and file systems while retaining backwards compatibility

That's a good point tbh, I still remember having my mind blown at microSD cards with more than 10 GB data capacity and now we have TB class microSD cards!

 

[Readlight]

SD card readers only work when I blow air in to it and are write proteted.

 

[dj-electric]

There's a problem with the CFX-B concencious right now, and its mostly related to Angelbird's SE 512GB card, which is a 180 dollar card. That's 4 times the capacity of such cards as this Lexar.
While not as fast, its typically planty for both photography buffer and all sorts of internal 10bit video recording, and on newer machines even some 4K 12bit internal compressed RAW stuff.

I wonder when will we see a true improvement in price to value over that Angelbird, and it seems like not any time soon, frankly. It absolutely dominates this sub 200 dollar category.

 

[Chaitanya]

There's a problem with the CFX-B concencious right now, and its mostly related to Angelbird's SE 512GB card, which is a 180 dollar card. That's 4 times the capacity of such cards as this Lexar.
While not as fast, its typically planty for both photography buffer and all sorts of internal 10bit video recording, and on newer machines even some 4K 12bit internal compressed RAW stuff.

I wonder when will we see a true improvement in price to value over that Angelbird, and it seems like not any time soon, frankly. It absolutely dominates this sub 200 dollar category.

AngelBird CFX-B card and its reader have terrible reviews(terrible QC, bad aftersales support and firmware update requiring said Angelbird reader which costs $80). There are quite a few options for sub $200 512GB cards(Prograde, Sabrent, OWC, Transcend, Exascend and Pergear) so there already is quite a lot of competition in that segment and these cards work for most users unless they are leaning heavily in video segment in which case these high performance cards a necessity.

 

[dj-electric]

AngelBird CFX-B card and its reader have terrible reviews(terrible QC, bad aftersales support and firmware update requiring said Angelbird reader which costs $80). There are quite a few options for sub $200 512GB cards(Prograde, Sabrent, OWC, Transcend, Exascend and Pergear) so there already is quite a lot of competition in that segment and these cards work for most users unless they are leaning heavily in video segment in which case these high performance cards a necessity.

Among where I participate socially, which admittedly is camera user circles, there was almost zero complaints about both the reader and the card, sampling a few dozen cases I know of personally.

Its important to remember that anything popular with have an abundance of terrible reviews out of sheer popularity. The only case I know of a faulty card among the circles I participate was physical damage as a result of dropping it.

Regarding the reader - not buying the ProGrade SD + CFXB one is a poor choice, and that's all I gotta say. Best 60 bucks ive ever spent on a piece of camera related equipment.