Super-fast, yet reasonably well priced: Sony's latest Type B offerings look tempting
(Image credit: Sony)
Sony has announced two new CFexpress Type B cards, with faster performance than the company's first generation of medium-capacity Type B cards. The new CEB-G480T and CEB-G240T memory cards are 480GB and 240GB in capacity, and both boast a 1850MB/s maximum read speed - a useful boost over the 1700MB/s offered by Sony's previous Type B cards of similar capacities. Write speeds are also faster, at up to 1750MB/s for the 480GB card, and 1600MB/s for the 240GB card. Both compare favorably with the 1480MB/s write speed rating of Sony's older 256GB and 512GB G-series Type B cards.
The new 480GB and 240GB versions slot in below Sony's existing 1920GB and 960GB Type B cards, with all four capacities capable of similar read/write speeds. The 1920GB and 960GB cards both have VPG-400 certification, meaning they won't drop below 400MB/s during sustained writing. But judging by the press release and product imagery, the latest 480GB and 240GB cards don't carry the same VPG-400 certification. Even so, given their fast maximum read and write speeds, we'd be surprised if they had any trouble writing 4K60 video, or even 8K 30p footage.
Sony also states that the new cards have 5x greater drop strength and 3x greater bendability, though it's not clear what the benchmark for these statistics is. The new cards are also claimed to work in extreme temperatures, X-rays, electrostatic and intensive UV sunlight.
The 480GB CEB-G480T and 240GB CEB-G240T CFexpress Type B cards will be priced at $320/£340 and $200/£220. They are due to go on sale in the UK in April, and in North America from early May.
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Ben is the Imaging Labs manager, responsible for all the testing on Digital Camera World and across the entire photography portfolio at Future. Whether he's in the lab testing the sharpness of new lenses, the resolution of the latest image sensors, the zoom range of monster bridge cameras or even the latest camera phones, Ben is our go-to guy for technical insight. He's also the team's man-at-arms when it comes to camera bags, filters, memory cards, and all manner of camera accessories – his lab is a bit like the Batcave of photography! With years of experience trialling and testing kit, he's a human encyclopedia of benchmarks when it comes to recommending the best buys.