HP and Express Cards

Don't know why HP opted for Express Cards rather than having a PCMCIA slot. I find it useless. There's only two cards that will fit this slot, a remote and for a tv card. I need one to read my CF cards!

 

Haha I know what you mean...
I went through 2 different 6000 series laptops and they only have the express card slot. I took the laptops back because frankly they were built poorly, and had many problems which I have found discussed in detail in other areas of this forum.

I did some research on the express card, and they really are a better design from the older pcmcia cards....half the pins (and size) and twice the bandwidth...with less power usage. makes sense with the hp strategy of thinning out their laptops trying to loose weight and streamline them..

I solved the problem by going with an older 8000 series laptop, built at least twice as well as the newer ones and it incorporates both the pcmcia and the express card slot.

 

http://www.expresscard.org/web/do/pub/resourcedirectory

There is more than just 2 things for express slots!

At least one EC/54 CF reader coming.

But why not just get a small USB key CF reader? For less than 10 bucks you can get them on ebay.

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=cf+usb+key

Express slot is better than PCMCIA. If you remember there was hardly anything for PCMCIA at first either!

 

Thanks for the heads up on the expresscard site. Hopefully these products' availability is easy to purchase. I have an external multicard reader already. Just for everyone's info, HP doesn't support the SDHC format on their SD card reader YET. Hope things will get better in the near future.