Time for laptop manufacturers to rid of expresscard BS

I think its about time. I have had quite a few laptops. They always had PCMCIA, now, expresscard slots. Never have I used them. All a waste of space. A 1.8" HDD would find itself very useful in its space instead. I say get rid of it.

I understand some people use it for their wireless, etc. But new laptops don't need it. These wireless connectivity etc are comming standard on almost all machines. Further, USB/eSATA transfer rates are getting pretty good that expresscard is useless. If people ever find the need to use devices not included in their pc when they got it, at a later time, then they may opt for USB or wire based external devices.

The other advatnage of expresscard/PCMCIA slots is the 'internal' nature of the laptop. But newsflash, they arnt even that 'internal' with always a huge chunk of crap sticking out.

Further lets look at the list of devices offered for expresscard slots. Yep, all useless by my everyday standard.

I think its time for notebook manufacturers to start scrapping this useless feature, and perhaps even cut some cost on the machinese cause they dont have to pay the royalties to use express card.

 

I can find a lot of devices that wouldn't be useless to a lot of people, such as soundcards, LAN ports, TV Tuners, the list goes on. I do not believe it is a useless feature, as there are a lot of people that require the sort of stuff that uses it.

 

The thing I didnt mention was, these PCMCIA/expresscard devices are made by select opportunistic manufacturers because expresscards were chosen as a standard feature in most laptops and already exists as I/O. Again, this is not neccesary anymore as USB drives and eSATA have very high transfer rates, so future external devices can make use of other transfer I/O ports instead of expresscard, and leave that space either to add an extra HDD, or make the laptop smaller, lighter, cheaper.

LAN ports, TV tuner cards, soundcards, etc- can all be external devices if you really need them after the fact of buying your laptop. It need not be explicitly through expresscard.

Back in the day of PCMCIA era, they were considered mildly useful because such things as modems or ethernet cards were not included in laptops as standards, and these PCMCIA card modems were optional choices back then. This made sense for a while, plus those devices fit fluishly in the laptop.

Then came the new thing about wireless, so ok. But these PCMCIA wireless cards were ugly and stuck outside the laptop. I mean if you really wanted it, Im sure some USB external solution would not have been much worse if offered.

Nowadays all laptops come standard with these wireless, etc features. Expresscard has no place in laptops. They may still be useful for so called desktop replacement that is meant to have everything in it as standard. But for anything other than desktop replacement, they are a complete waste of space IMO. Not neccesary for future laptops.

Therefore, hopefully when alll manufacturers get rid of expresscards, peopel who find the need to use other devices or features not included in their laptop may opt to use external wire tethered options, perhaps connected via USB for example, rather than relying on expresscard, which frankly would be sticking out anyway.

 

But then you couldn't use it with the DIY vidock (external desktop GPU).

 

the video dock was made by people who knew expresscard slots existed in laptops. If laptop manufacturers dropped expresscards in their laptops in the future, these external video cards can still exist, but it will just be using different I/O instead of express card. Especially since other I/O have very high data transfer rates nowadays.

 

But what happens if the next iteration of Expresscard has a higher transfer rate than other formats, like it has this generation?

 

well express card was what? 3GB/s? just use USB3.0, it can hit 5.0GB/s, I imagine light peak will improve on this as well.

 

Well I know that USB 3.0 is fast, but what happens if a new iteration of Expresscard can do, say, 8GB/s?

 

USB 3.0 can reach speeds almost up to almost 5GB/s. Thats pretty darn fast, in fact expresscard 2.0 is only projected to be 5GB/s itself.

So therefore it is a complete waste considering it actually takes space up in the physical laptop itself, that can either be used to hold an additional HDD or be used to add other features, reduce volume of the laptop, and also reduce the cost of the laptop (since royalties dont need to be paid). everything makes sense to get rid of it for the future.

It won't. With that logic, why cant we expect the same for USB or other alternative I/Os?

Heres the other fact, the next gen expresscard is expresscard 2.0 and it has nominal transfer speeds of 5GB/s. This is barely any faster than USB. Plus it wastes a heck of a lot of space on the laptop. I will rather have a 1.8" HDD in that space, thank you very much.

 

I would rather have the port. It gives you lots of options. You can always get a bigger and faster HDD, why do you need 2?

Also using a video card with USB will make your CPU work too hard and so the performance goes down. You can buy notebooks that don't have express card slots, why not go for one of those?

 

I have the understanding that an ExpressCard slot, whether it be 34/54, takes up a lane on the PCI-e hub. Now, thats pretty much the fastest port available on a notebook. If I want USB 3.0 capability, I have the option of an ExpressCard USB 3.0 expansion card for added functionality. I for one would NOT like to see it gone. It really only exists on certain higher-spec'd notebooks anyway, and if you don't want it, don't buy a notebook with it. And as mentioned above... I cannot wait to see what LightPeak can do.

 

The thing is, you don't actually need it. The tasks you are using with expresscard can be performed also, but in the future, uising other I/O ports like USB instead, for example. It doesnt mean you lose those options for the future.

What getting rid of expresscard likely does mean, is your laptop has extra space saved. Manufacturers can make the laptop smaller, or add other features in its place, say a second HDD as option. No, you dont need to get it if you dont want. Further, it is cheaper because no royalties need to be paid to the company. Cheaper for you to pay, cheaper for them to make.

Actually a lot of notebooks are scaling back on expresscard slots now I see cause they are turning to the smaller expresscard 34 instead. A good sign. A better sign is when its not even there.

"buy another laptop without it if you protest" - these kinda arguments are just weak and serves no point at all. The point is most PC laptops do include them, except for some ultraportables (not even all) and netbooks. So if you want a windows PC you'd likely get one. Your point is weak. Plus we are saying for the future. We know they all have it now. In the future hopefully they wont because they really are pointless.

 

If you hate it so much, I'm simply saying... Why did you buy one with it in the first place. I said nothing about buying another notebook.

 

Actually, since most notebooks have miniPCIe card slots, I don't need the express card. but I want as many miniPCIe card slots as they can fit in a notebook (at least 4).

 

And I'm saying you should perhaps steer clear of those sort of condescending argument points, because again, most laptops have it and all laptops have ups and downs and all purchase choices are based on the lesser of evils to your situation whether economic of functionality. Therefore if you want a certain windows PC laptop, you will most likelyt have expresscard along with it. It doesnt change the point of the discussion, that is to get rid of it for future laptops. Not right now.

Plus, if my prediction is correct, they'd be all gone in future iterations of laptops cause im pretty sure notebook companies know expresscards are on its way to being redundant. By then you'd prob be eating your words yourself, cause you'd prob be using a notebook for a external video dock or external sound card, perhaps tethered via USB.

Its like parrallel port. Its gone on all laptops pretty much. No crying about it anymore.

 

An ExpressCard is simply a direct port to the PCIe bus, just as the PC Card is a low-latency, mostly direct connection to the backplanes. The ExpressCard will go obsolete only if something that is functionally compatible replaces it, like USB replaced parallel ports. There is nothing that functionally replaces a direct connection to the PCIe bus. USB is NOT that direct, and no matter the bandwidth there are many devices that are just not going to work well on USB3.

 

express card slots keep a persons options open incase you require a connection that wasn't offered at the time the laptop was released. For example, my laptop didn't come with an eSATA port. So I bought an expresscard 34 with two eSATA ports. I use them for running fast backups that would take forever if trying to do that with USB2.0.

But I see useroflaptops point... for future laptops it would be nice to simply have ALL of those ports already built in instead of having to resort to an expresscard adapter that looks like a big wart.

But even then, it would be nice to have some adapter port for upgradability as the laptop gets older. Perhaps not expresscard but some other (currently not existing) upgrade path. What if USB 4 comes out in 3 yrs and my laptop I buy in Feb only has a "slow" USB3.0. With an adapter card I could maybe get that new USB 4 port and take advantage of USB4 devices.

They are nice for upgradability is all.

 

That's what I think. I mean what if when LightPeak comes out, it gets an expresscard adapter. LightPeak maybe more able to actually push the avaliable bandwidth of expresscard, because just like USB 2.0 now... no device I know of is actually able to push the 480mbps speed.

 

It all depends on the steering by the electronics community abotu what standard should be used at the present and near future.

The idea of keeping an empty volume of space in your laptop in case you may need to connect external devices is a little backwards. Especially, when these options are likely going to be big and bulky anyway, and that other external options may be a real alternative to the expresscard anyway. A laptop should have full spatial efficiency in usage for useful components.

Plus, new standards will be developed in the future that will make even USB and certainly expresscard obsolete someday too. Theres no rule of thumb on anything. Express card is not the fastest highest throughput I/O concievable. It is one of the better ones right now, but that may not be true in the future when USB standards improve, or new I/O standards develop, I dunno, optical based I/Os for example.

I don't know of any statistical study done, but from my own observations, and from my personal use, it certainly appears true that the expresscard & PCMCIA slots were always a waste of space and are never used by people. Apple has even dropped expresscard from their lineups nowadays cause its pointless. We are seeing other PC notebook manufacturers doing the same now also, e.g. lenovo switching to the smaller expresscard 34 on newer laptops instead of the stupid L shaped 54. People will develop new ways to get fast I/Os even if expresscard is no longer there on laptops. Its just that laptops shouldnt have inefficient use of space, that perhaps the majority of the consumers won't ever find useful throughout the product lifeline. When nobody seems to be using expresscard much, it becomes unproductive to keep it.

 

ExpressCard is the fastest throughput available on a given laptop. If the system buses improve, we'll find a new port that does the same thing. My Envy here doesn't have an ExpressCard or an optical drive, but that's not a huge deal to me. I think that there's enough of a market for ExpressCard expansions that it's worth it for manufacturers to include it. Besides, it's a "bullet point" that costs almost nothing, and really doesn't take up THAT much space when you think about it. Most of the time it'd be unused space in a machine to begin with.

 

The 64 gb express card ssd doesn't stick out of my express card slot, it's nice and snug.

 

Using light peak in tandem to the expresscard is backwards. It will be bottlenecked by the expresscard. Another reason expresscard is useless.

If someone has an older laptop before such a technology is released, and the fastest I/O is the expresscard, and the user wants this new technology, then perhaps they can still live via a USB 3.0 interface. Either way you cut it, expresscard probably will give you only marginal benefit to light peak than say USB 3.0 that is only slightly slower. Plus, USB 3.0 probably has 100% usefulness in terms of the life of the laptop, whereas the expresscard probably comes into play during the last 10% of its life, when such new technologies are released, and even then you will never see the full potential of these newer I/Os anyway. To do so will require you to get a new laptop anyway.

True it is a bulletpoint for marketing. However, alternatively, if that space was used as a second HDD space for a 1.8" HDD for example, thats another alternative bulletpoint for marketing that may even be more attractive. They can even fluff it up to RAID configuration possibilities, etc.

Actually yea it does, but it is a expresscard 34. A lot of laptops in the current market offer expresscard 54, the L shaped one. When you put your expresscard 34 SSD into a 54 slot, there is an empty space collecting dust and looking ugly.

Thankfully however, a lot of laptop manufacturers are slowing dropping expresscard by downsizing to the expresscard 34. So this is not as big an issue for laptops 2010.

Even still, a lot of the other expresscard devices are bulky and ugly, plus they are for applications that are unavoidably going to be bulky, e.g. external vid card or sound card, tv tuner, etc. I dont know, a USB dock for those kinda roles won't be too bad, perhaps even more asthetically pleasing also?

 

Last time I checked, miniPCI, and Expresscard were Parallel Bus ports.
You can use them for quite a load of devices, let alone parallel coding.

My homemade laptop doesnt have either, but it does have external SCSI/SAS/FB Channel/ which is useful to me.

K-TRON

 

usb will always transfer things in blocks which makes actual benchmarks much slower for realtime applications.

useroflaptops, you are ridiculous. the amount of control you have over this situation is FIXED. there is nothing you can do about it, you are going nowhere and accomplishing very little by posting about this so much.

soundcards push it. try running a total of 8 192khz ins and outs simultaneously. there arent any professional interfaces for usb of course, they all are for firewire. its because its in raw versus in blocks.

 

Wow. Now thats bandwidth.

 

haven't read the whole thread as it was just flamethrows but i must say, without expresscard or pcmcia slots... wouldnt have a headphone jack. the amaaaaaaazingly high quality built in one broke and so i got a plug in sound card majig to plug into the side. now i haz headphones again! for this, i am glad these expressports are put on

 

You might say expresscard slot is useless but when u break something like a headphone jack or need more USB ports or e-SATA port, then expresscard is useful.... stop flaming it.... although it might be useless to many , if u look out it can be useful to u too..

 

If it is useless to you, don't buy a laptop with one. Sure, everything can be external. But having things that you take with you as internal devices is a good option (like TV tuners). It also allows for either legacy ports most people no longer need or future upgrades as new ports become available (I'll probably add a USB 3 card at some point).

 

What we need is useful peripherals that take advantage of the slot. Good SSDs that an OS can be installed on, for example

 

I have not personally used it on my laptop but I do like it to be available. Like others have said ExpressCard slots are a direct port into the system and allow for expansion. You can always add additional devices up to it. I also saw another person's point that inserting a 34 card into a 54 slot looks odd. I'll agree on that but there are ways to handle that if you want to. I would like to see manufacturers of 34 cards dropping in a 34 -> 54 filler adapter to make sure the adapter locks in nice and snug.

 

How about getting rid of dial up modems? It will give a free space for one more USB port.

 

Yeah, this is actually a good option. Maybe in a couple of years when Dial-Up has been completely phased out, there are still people who live in the sticks that use it though.

 

The thing is that there are USB dial up modems for those that need it.

 

I too have never ever used an ExpressCard slot (the last time I used a slot was a wireless-G card for an old laptop with a PCMCIA slot). I like how the new Thinkpads have pretty much removed them except for a ExpressCard 34 slot, making room for many more ports.

 

indeed. my audio 8 dj soundcard is not professional and does not fit those requirements and is not on the usb.. i was fooled on all my gigs!!

 

So the Expresscard HSDPA modem I just purchased is useless by today's standards?

 

yes




(but i prefer the laptop-internal sim slots myself. but if one doesn't have one (or has to pay 400$ to get one (yeah!)), i prefer an expresscard version over a usb version any day)

 

it isn't useless... i doubt they're going completely phase out expresscard... after all it is multi purpose...

 

I find this entire topic to be absolute silliness. It's all based on the opinion of one person who shouldn't have purchased a computer with the port on it.

There are people who do use Expresscards, there are companies designing and manufacturing them for a myriad of uses. They are being made for a reason.

Just because someone doesn't like it, doesn't mean it's going anywhere. Sorry 'bout your luck, it's here to stay for the foreseeable future. When they have technology that can replace it, and do it affordably, and make it easy access to all PC users (such as USB) then you'll see Expresscards disappear.

Until then, people like me (HP/Hauppauge TV Tuner) will continue to need to use it (need in a positive, not negative way) and do so gladly.

In fact, I've been looking at newer laptops and I'm finding it more and more difficult to find a laptop featuring an Expresscard slot, for an affordable price. It's one of the first, if not the first, features I look for when I look at a laptop. If it doesn't have it, PASS. It could be made out of 24k gold and have an eight core processor or whatever else, and if it doesn't have the slot, it's a pass.

Not everyone shares your opinion, not everyone has to. But most people also don't care about your opinion and would much rather not listen to it. Period.

 

A discussion came up about the expresscard in another forum and I did a little search on the topic for interest sake of past discussions here. Interesting thread I found, so I thought I'd bring to notice an interesting latest development:

Official Home Page for ExpressCard Technology from PCMCIA

Yeah, the expresscard and PCMCIA standard are no longer. Guess most people here will be at a lost of words LOL. Same with all the whiners back in the day about RS232 and parallel ports.

The fact is, newer technology will always phase out the old. Better to get with the times than live in the stoneages no?

 

It seems OP is ahead of the times as expresscard standard is actually being slowly phased out now by manufacturers, and infact the PCMCIA association that advocated for and lobbied for their standard on notebooks is now disbanded, and admin/management/desemination of whats left of the loose-ends is now transferred over to the USB bunch.

Therefore I won't expect to see new notebooks comming forward to continue to include expresscard for much longer. Question is, why use a modem dialup in north america when there is ethernet, Wifi, WWAN, and later when WiMAX is even comming?

 

I occasionally stick a CF (compact flash) card reader/writer into the ExpressCard slot. Those ARW (RAW) picture files are huge and will take forever if I use a USB2 reader. It has a 2.5 Gb/s interface and the bottleneck is of course the memory card itself but I do have some fast CF cards too... so it's still a joy (fast) to download 16GB photos at a time. Any slower I'll leave all the pictures on the card and will never see it!!

 

Because you travel for work, are in BFE and a modem connection is your only option to get online.

Not that I would know anything about that....

 

Phil- what brand of CF expresscard reader are you using? I take a lot of RAW photo's and it's painful waiting for them to transfer via USB 2
Thanks
Brad

 

Well, of course that example is only metaphorical, but even then, surely you can find at least GPRS or EDGE in north america for your blackberry or something to tether your notebook to. Oh I guess now cost is prohibitive? What other specifications do you want to lay down before we go on? Why don't we discuss the prospects of having no electricity and needing pigeons to deliver our hand written messages? Why was that phased out again?

 

Hey Brad, I have two ExpressCard readers for 2 laptops.
- Verbatim 96538 ExpressCard 34 (example ebay item 220475398458)
- DataFab ExpressCard 54 (example ebay item 290525064901)

If you see something that says 33MB/s or 40MB/s... that's not the correct one even though it looks the same as the faster gigabit type. The correct one should be the fast 2.5Gb/s type which is over 300MB/s. They both work really well. Bye.


edit: PS. You may have to insert a CF card into that reader before/while loading the drivers (otherwise the driver can't find this reader/module... like this CF reader is transparent or missing

 

Phil- Thanks a million, something new to shop for!

 

not metaphorical at all (and i'm not sure you meant to use that word, but anyway...).

there are many areas where cell coverage is worse than wired broadband.

no other specifications required. you asked the question, i answered it. don't be a hater...

 

I used the Expresscard for my Creative X-Fi sound card; doesn't take my USB ports and plus something to use for in the Express slot.

But then I don't find other uses for it, and by selling my laptop, I just gave the X-Fi away with it .

 

If you ask me they should get rid of everything except USB 3, power and headphone/mic slots.
I never use anything else.
CD drives are slowly becoming obsolete too with the progress of usb storage.

In other words different people have different needs.



I don't understand why can't someone develop universally awesome port that works for everything and then you could just have like 20 of those in your computer lol.