Put both PCMCIA(Cardbus) and Expresscard 54 expansion slots in laptops.

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Put both PCMCIA(Cardbus) and Expresscard 54 expansion slots in laptops.

150 points posted to Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Latitude products, Laptops by mandarinka Mar 23

It's a bit silly that most addon cards available (like TV tuners, controllers, network adapters and mobile internet connection cards) are made for the Cardbus (PCMCIA) interface, now that a lot of laptops is phasing it out in favor of the expresscard bus. I agree that the future lies in the latter and newer expansion slot, but it would be great to still have some backwards compatibility in the years to come.

Therefore I would like to see laptops with both types of slots (just 1+1 probably), at least in the Latitude line. I guess it shouldn't be a big problem, at least in the 15,4" form factor. I have seen some Acer machines that supported this, but that just aint Latitude.

P.S. It would also help if these were not in rack (one atop the other) beacuse the cards tend to have this external thingie that is often bulkier and prevents the insertion of other device in the slot atop it. So give it a thought if it wouldn't be possible to put them in lateral possibtion, next to each other - under the motherboard or under the keyboard... That would be great, I'm sure design-conscious people (well, the practical ones, not teh apple stuff, I fear) would apreciate that.

cestuila Mar 23	So far, you do have the 2 options with the Latitude range, since they have PCMCIA and you have adapters when you want to put an Express Card in a PCMCIA slot.... Regarding the new generation of Latitude E, it seems Dell heard your thoughts before you wrote them down: http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/22/dells-leaked-latitude-e6000-and-e5000-seri... (si snapshots)
mandarinka Mar 24	The PCMCIA adapter is not really a great option - first I belive it is external, and what's more, it only allows use of USB 2.0 based expresscards. NOT the expresscard boards based on pci-express (which offers more performance); those are unusable with it. And then again - the reason to use expresscard in favor of PCMCIA is vastly improved connection bandwith - there is no point in it when you connect it via PCMCIA, which in fact even uses shared system bandwith (133MB/s for the WHOLE system). Second, I see I overlooked it is possible in some systems (W00T and way to go!). It is also more like I wanted to remind Dell for the future: not to drop the PCMCIA slot unless really necessary - at least in the Latitude line, which is less about cheapest price possible.
undead999 Mar 24	there are adapters for for pcmcia cards to pc express slots. PCMCIA works at slow bus speed, most uers would be better off upgrading their cards to express cards
mandarinka Mar 25	The PCMCIA to expresscard adapters are not fully compatible (see above in my second post) and they come with a performance hit anyway. The PCMCIA should stay at least in the corporate line of laptops for the sake of compatibility (most Latitudes today have PCMCIA only!). Many many perfectly good peripherals cannot be easily replaced with expresscard equivalent, and even if they were, why? For example, PCMCIA can be used (with a simple passive reduction) to attach Compactflash card straight to the PCI bus as an IDE drive (allows installation of an OS, fast access etc.) All the same, the laptops should really have expresscard as well because of the forward compatibility (this slot is the future, of course) and for use with bandwith-critical expansion cards.
fxi Mar 25	Dual expresscard slots then?
mandarinka Mar 26	I would rather see PCMCIA there, so people can use all the cards they hoarded throughout the last 15 years! Don't forget the corporate line must be able to use peripherals consumers like us never even knew about. Compatibility with these older, or just not replacable devices is a big plus.
fxi Mar 29	PCMCIA is it's own performance hit really. If you cared strongly about performance you'd upgrade to Expresscard adapters, I would think. Agreed the incompatibility issues can be a pain but they'll work those out in time. I'd take a reasonable bet that dual expresscard slots, one running an adapter (that actually works properly, maybe a Dell sponsored one), would give you both the backwards need, as well as dual cards for down the road use when you are using all expresscards. There are a lot of options now for expresscard, external video, esata, more usb, sound, not to mention some future wireless standard that I'm sure will come down the road. Food for thought anyway, no?
bretta Apr 11	Well, Mandarinka, I gotta disagree... "The future" lies in no card at all. The main use of PCMCIA around here was for Wireless-G until recently, but most newer laptops have Wireless-N built-in. I'd suggest - at least for one line of Latitudes - that they drop cards entirely. These are generally business laptops and most folk I know want less of this type of thing, not more! Give us an updated Latitude line akin to the 2002 X200, where size was important. So, no cards, 2 USB ports, 1 DisplayPort, mike and speakers, built-in Wireless-N, a choice of ~13, ~15 and ~17" sceens, SSD and decent processor and battery, but little else. Please don't advocate for all Latitudes when many of us want the option of thinner and simpler for being on the road, I haven't used my X200s docking station for years now, and would never consider a Latitude with built-in card slots or optical drive (or floppy!) any longer. I only needed my X200's PCMCIA slot for Wireless, but not anymore. Sorry, I rarely demote, but when you're advocating a move like this for all Latitues (and more, it seems), demotion is the only option - this is entirely the wrong direction for Latitude, methinks.
brokencrystal Jul 3	How about an adapter for going backwards? Is that possible?

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