It looks like Lexar has had quite a lot of surprises in store for this year's Photokina. After announcing the launch of a Kodak-branded SDHC card and adopting Eye-Fi technology for one of its own cards a short while ago, the flash memory manufacturer has just announced a significant improvement to its Professional line of CompactFlash (CF) memory cards, whose access speed has been bumped up to 233x.

Thus, all the Lexar Professional 233x CF memory cards will be UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access)-enabled from now on and will also be capable of minimum-sustained read and write speeds of 35MB per second. The new, speedier cards will be available in three capacities, including 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB, and will be able to deliver professional-level performance for a wider range of digital SLR users.

However, these 233x cards are not the fastest in Lexar's lineup. The new CompactFlash cards actually represent the entry-level models, which come to further enhance the performances of the Lexar Professional line, which includes Lexar Professional 300x CF products ranging from 2GB to 16GB in capacity and Lexar Professional Secure Digital 133x products ranging from 2GB to 8GB.As always, the company's representatives claim that the reason behind this improvement is related to the fact that an increasingly higher number of people go for DSLR cameras. “With the recent surge in popularity of digital SLR cameras, professional photographers and photo enthusiasts require flash memory cards that not only safely store all of their images, but also are fast enough to keep pace with rapid shooting,” said Greg Agustin, senior product marketing manager, Lexar. “The new Lexar Professional 233x CF cards provide the reliability, speed, and capacity photographers require to shoot continuously and confidently, while improving post-production workflow capabilities.”

There's no pricing information regarding the two cards available for the time being, but chances are that they'll be available at pretty much the same price point as their slower counterparts, actually replacing them in stores on the future. source : softpedia.com