- China has released a new SSD that is the same size as a SIM card.
- These SSDs can be inserted into gaming handhelds, but their price is still unknown, as there is not even a listing yet.
- Unlike the SSD in the Switch 2, this new SSD is more than three times faster.
Your typical SSDs aren’t exactly huge, but they still take up a fair bit of room inside your PC. Now, imagine if they didn’t take up any space at all; pretty great, right? Well, that might soon be a reality.
China has developed a new type of SSD that’s no bigger than a SIM card and can be slotted directly into handheld gaming PCs. In other words, you’ll be able to add storage to your handheld just like popping in a SIM card on a phone.
Why it matters: SSDs may not take up much space in handhelds, but having one the size of a SIM card while still delivering extreme speed would be a complete game changer.
A Chinese manufacturer, Biwin, has unveiled a new SSD measuring 15mm x 17mm x 1.4mm thick, slightly larger than a MicroSD. Despite its tiny size, the SSD offers maximum sequential read speeds of 3,700 megabytes per second. It also offers up to 2 TB of storage.
It is worth noting that the Nintendo Switch 2 features MicroSD Express cards, which are essentially SSDs, albeit not as fast as this one. That is because it offers less than a third of the speed of Biwin’s micro SSD.
The company is marketing it for phones, tablets, laptops, cameras, and various other hardware devices. However, it remains to be seen whether other storage manufacturers can adopt it, and that would be an actual test for it to gain significant market traction, potentially.
That said, GPD Win 5 and OneXPlayer Super X, both of which were shown in the recent ChinaJoy event, will use this new mini SSD.
The former is a handheld gaming PC with a massive battery, which now supports the new mini SSD, and the latter is a hybrid laptop/tablet from OneNetbook that also uses the same powerful Strix Halo chip and now has a slot just for these mini SSDs.
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[News Editor]
Obaid is pursuing a Law degree while working as a content writer. He has worked as a gaming writer for over three years because of his passion for the medium and reporting the latest updates in the industry. Having played hundreds of games, Obaid finds himself coming back to Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and Red Dead Redemption 2, with these games being among his favorites. He has also been mentioned on highly regarded websites, such as Wccftech, Metro UK, PS Lifestyle, GamePressure, VGC, and Gamespot.