The brand Angelbird has announced two new and fully VPG-certified CFexpress Type A memory cards after failing at this earlier in 2024.
Going even further back, Angelbird first introduced a new and very impressive CFexpress Type A card with a massive 1TB capacity and promised respective read/write speeds of 820 and 720 MB/s. Moreover, the company claimed that these cards could deliver sustained speeds of 650MB/s.
This was all announced in April of 2023 and given the promised sustained speeds of these cards, it stood to reason that they’d obtain VPG400 certification from the Compact Flash Association.
This didn’t happen however and instead, in early 2024, Angelbird simply removed the cards from the market without much in the way of explanation.
At the time, many card makers were revealed to have been either foregoing tests for VPG compliance rating or in some cases were even faking the VPG firmware approval flag to basically sell some cards under false promises.
Angelbird itself didn’t do either of these things as far as is known but the brand’s 1TB cards did go off the market soon after their release, possibly because they didn’t have the VPG certification necessary to deliver full performance.
Crucially, genuine VPG compliance approval is necessary at a firmware level in CFexpress cards if for them to be capable of unlocking all of the recording features delivered by Sony’s very widely used mirrorless cameras.
Given the importance of these features and the ubiquity of Sony model cameras among users, not having a certain level of VPG compliance or worse, faking it, would be a recipe for product disaster.
This may have been one reason why Angelbird simply went back to the drawing board.
In any case, their efforts after the recall of their seemingly impressive 1TB cards seem to have paid off because the new CFexpress Type A card releases do indeed have VPG approval. It’s of a more modest VPG200 level but it’s there.
These new cards also promise very high maximum read/write speeds and we’ll see how sustained their claimed sustained speeds of 650MB/s are.
On the other hand, these new editions offer more modest capacities of just 160GB and 330GB, though the benefit of this is that they’re less expensive as well.
According to Angelbird,
“Angelbird’s AV PRO CFexpress A SE memory cards are ideal for Sony Alpha and FX series cameras such as Sony a1, Sony a9 III, Sony a7 IV, Sony a7R V, Sony a7S III, Sony FX3, Sony FX30, and the Sony FX6,”
The brand also adds that their new and fully certified cards are powerful enough to firmly deliver enough speed for 8K RAW stills and 8K video recording.
Angelbird also promises that they’ll the cards will smoothly handle “lengthy, high data rate, 4K+ resolution stills, seamless video content, and get extended buffer support for burst photography.”
The VPG200 certification in the new cards means that the Compact Flash Association tested them to confirm that they can comprehensively sustain at least 200MB/s of performance at all times. This is however good enough to deliver on all the photo and video performance that Angelbird promises above.
This VPG certification also fully unlocks recording features at the firmware level for the Sony cameras that these cards are aimed at.
The CFA itself now confirms that Angelbird’s new cards are VPG-certified. They appear right at the top of the Association’s own list of certified cards here.
Both of these new cards are now available. The 160GB edition retails for $170.99 while the 330GB version is going for $249.99.
