Lexar has just revealed the shipment of the world’s first 1TB microSD Express card, which is perfect for the newly revealed Nintendo Switch 2. They say that this new card is built on the new SD card standard, which combines PCI Express 3.0 and NVMe 1.3 interfaces. This means that the PLAY PRO microSDXC Express Card delivers substantially improved performance which is going to mean faster transfer times, faster saving and load, and will be a big upgrade over the older MicroSD cards.
The new cards come with read speeds of up to 900 MB/s and write speeds of up to 600 MB/s. This means that the PLAY PRO microSDXC Express Card offers the fastest speeds currently available in the microSD Express card format, at least for now. This provides gamers with a significant performance boost, resulting in faster game loading times and accelerated downloads.
Backwards Compatible
With a capacity of up to 1 TB, it also offers ample space for numerous large AAA game titles, and no doubt with the higher resolutions and newer games hitting the console, file sizes are likely to be larger than the previous generation anyway. What’s great is that the card is backwards-compatible with UHS-I and UHS-II host devices (operating at UHS-I speeds), ensuring it is both suitable for current devices and future-proofed for upcoming cutting-edge handheld gaming systems and other devices that will utilise this next-generation technology.
What Lexar Had to Say
“The new microSD Express standard offers us a way to deliver a memory card with incomparable performance in that form factor,” said Joey Lopez, Director of Brand Marketing. “We’re excited to create a card for our customers that leverages the benefits of this new standard and prepares gamers for the next generation of handheld gaming.”
Key Features
- World’s first 1 TB microSD Express card. (available in 256GB and 512GB)
- Combining PCI Express 3.0 and NVMe 1.3 interfaces.
- Read speeds up to 900 MB/s.
- Write speeds up to 600 MB/s.
- Ideal for handheld gaming devices.
- Capacity up to 1TB.
- Backwards-compatible with UHS-I and UHS-II host devices (at UHS-I speeds).
- Limited lifetime warranty.
Price and Availability
The Lexar PLAY PRO microSDXC Express Card is available in 1 TB for an MSRP of £199.99, 512 GB for an MSRP of £99.99, and 256 GB for an MSRP of £49.99. The PLAY PRO microSDXC Express Card also comes with a limited lifetime warranty and lifetime access to the Lexar Recovery Tool, which allows customers to restore accidentally deleted or formatted files.
