SanDisk 6GB microSD Card

680 reads my Adata 8GB SD card just fine. They might not officially support higher-capacity cards, but many will still work. Not sure if this is true of the Centro or not, though.

Um, you might want to do some research first, before you make such blanket statements.

You mean like develop for the platform?

From VFSMgr.h in Garnet:

long VFSVolumeSize (WORD volRefNum, UINT32 *pui32UsedSize, UINT32 *pui32TotalCapacity)

Last I checked, 32 bits only got you 4GB. Now if Palm where to hack the lower level to make the card show as *2* cards, you'd be set.

Please go back and actually *fill* your 6GB and access them with your device before you tell me it works.

Blanket indeed.

From my experiences with using an 8gb SDHC card with my 700p, the Treo/Garnet "sees" the first 4gb by default due to the 32-bit addressng limitation. Then once you start to fill it up past that, things start to get funny. The Card Info app sees things different than some apps do and it makes trying to keep up with what files are on the card a general mess. I seem to recall CorePlayer in particular not being able to find or let me open files I KNEW were on the card! Basically, if you've got a 6gb or 8gb card, you need to either have <4gb filled or a lot more than 4gb filled. Otherwise, if you're right there on the edge, you'll be just as confused as Garnet ends up being. I quickly gave up trying to manage with my 8gb SDHC card in my 700p (stuck it in my digicam where it's totally happy) and just went back to two separate SD cards (a 4gb & a 2gb) instead.

This is a long-standing issue with POS that I was afraid was coming (no, I'm not a programmer, just had a bad feeling when Palm was slow to get on the FAT32 bandwagon). IMO, this issue is ENTIRELY the reason that Palm regressed from fullsize SD/SDHC to miniSD to microSD. They're trying to coast along until Plinux in 2009 by continually regressing to costlier, smaller capacity memory card formats to try and hide/mask the deficiencies of FrankenGarnet. This is also one of the reasons that we never saw the 8gb LifeDrive (or a flash-based variant) that Brighthand et al. practically assured us was in the works back in '05.

Our BEST hope would be for Palm to 'fess up to this limitation ASAP and release a Treo with a 4gb internal flash volume (ala LD & T5) alongside the SDHC slot. This would let users pretty easily have 8gigs of stuff onboard without having to worry about any potential headaches or unseen files.

P.S. Am I correct in my assumption that none of Palm's WM-powered lineup is officially SDHC/>4gb volume aware? Is this a hardware limitation or what? I know WM isn't limited to <4gb volumes so is this a specific Palm problem?

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world: those that read binary and those that don't. ;)

-e

Thanks for the "industry insight". I had no idea that the cost differences were so considerable between the "old" SD and the "new" tiny formats.

But, at the same time, not even the lowest of the low end Chinese digital camera manufacturers aren't abandoning SD/SDHC en masse!?!?! And one is still hard pressed to find a ton of laptops/desktops/printers/internal card readers that natively accept mini & microSD formats (as well as MS Duo etc).

I still stand by my theory that Palm will keep retreating to the safely of <4gb card volumes. IF they can save a few pennies when specifying their devicves to the ODMs then all the better!

I just know that I find SDHC the perfect format from a size/performance/cost/capacity/compatibility standpoint. I hate niche formats like SmartMedia/xD and the mostly-proprietary Memory Stick flavors. CF was nice for a good decade +/- but it's just a tad too big. SD is ideal for 90% of devies (most everything larger than a dumbphone). I hate all of the formats that are tiny in both capacity and in physical size. At most, we should have only microSD & fullsize SD. MiniSD was completely unnecessary (thanks, Sandisk!) and Palm should be have completely overlooked it on the 750 & 755p.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Still......Palm teased me mightily with the 680 (antenna-less & smaller than the previous 700-series) with its fullsize SDHC slot so I was hoping for just ONE more antenna-less Palm OS Treo so I could keep using my pile of fullsize SD/SDHC cards here. Oh well.

Thanks for all of the input/industry info. If Palm had to "go small" I still wish they'd have gone straight to microSD from fullsizse SD. I'm worried now that I if I upgrade to the 755p in '08 I'll have to go microSD on the next device. You're right, adapters are the best solution here: probably wiser to just buy a microSDHC card now and use it w/ a miniSD adapter in the 755p.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

One dirty little secret about these so-called "adapters" are that they are often flimsy and will easily break after just a few uses. Probably when you are FAR away from your computer and/or some tape to kludge them.

The MiniSD adapter is especially dangerous - the difference in size between the MiniSD and the SD card is pretty negligible. That means there isn't a lot of "meat" to encapsulate the card strongly - basically they are extremely vulnerable to falling apart if you expect to actually USE them in your applications meant for SD cards. Companies like "Transcend" compound the problem by building them out of paper-thin cheap plastic, and you can bet they'll void your "lifetime" warranty as soon as their sub par adapter breaks.

An adapter is still an "ADAPTER" and due to a bad design and cost-cutting by manufacturers these are _not_ an adequate substitution for the proper card size. Sharing cards between my Treo 755 and my digital camera has become an expensive and risky process, and in my opinion Palm should have concentrated on sticking with the card that works in many laptops, most consumer cameras, and every Palm and Handera and Pocket PC built since 1999 or so: Secure Digital (with only the addition of SDHC drivers). But I guess when Palm keeps rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic then screwing up the standard flash formats might win you a promotion there.

|
**Another vote for a >100MB RAM Treo**