After a couple of years in the making, the Eye-Fi wireless memory card is finally here. Read today’s press release here. But isn’t it already late in the market?
When the Eye-Fi idea was first introduced, it was a hot idea; this was a time when computers did not have built-in card readers and built-in Wi-Fi capability. The idea of an SD card with its own wireless capability seemed novel and groundbreaking, even convenient.
But Wi-Fi now comes standard with every new desktop PC or laptop. Eye-Fi is effectively rendered redundant in today’s environment.
Still, at $100 for a 2GB Eye-Fi SD memory card (a similarly-sized Kingston SD card sells for half as much), the Wi-Fi capability is there. And it might appeal to some people.
Eye-Fi is marketing its product to people who subscribe to photo sharing sites like Flickr and PhotoBucket, saying the wireless SD card makes uploading photos directly from your camera to the Web a very easy process. Watch their video and be amazed at how seemingly simple it is.
But shouldn’t you select and process your photos first before uploading it? And how fast can it upload from your camera? Does it offer a real advantage now? Can’t a normal SD card do the same inside the memory slot of your Wi-Fi-equipped PC?
[Site: Eye.Fi]