Steve's Digicams - Breaking News - Lexar 02/20/2005 Press Release

Lexar Expands Award-Winning Professional Series Flash Memory Cards and Accessories

Line-Up Now Features Speed-Rated SD Card and Memory Stick PRO in Newly Designed Packaging

ORLANDO, FL, February 20, 2005 (PMA booth #4132) – Lexar Media, Inc. (Nasdaq: LEXR), a world leader in advanced digital media technologies, today announced the expansion of the company’s Professional Series of flash memory cards and accessories by adding Professional Memory Stick PRO™, speed rated at 80X, and Professional Secure Digital™ (SD), speed rated at 60X, to its award-winning professional line of products. In addition, the company also announced that the complete line of Professional Series flash memory cards and accessories is now available in newly designed, eye-catching packaging designed to drive customer attention at retail sales locations.

"We’re expanding our Professional Series of products and improving the product packaging to meet the needs of the rapidly evolving professional photography category," said Jim Gustke, general manager, marketing, Lexar. "A full-suite of easily identifiable cards and accessories benefits both our retail partners and our photography customers. The expansion of the product line–to include Professional SD and Professional Memory Stick PRO and feature-specific CompactFlash™ –is the most recent step by Lexar to deliver the highest performing and most reliable media solutions to professional audiences worldwide," he added.

Lexar’s Professional Series products will be available in redesigned product packaging, including new flash memory card boxes and card labels. The new packaging has an appealing, highly visual look and feel consistent with Lexar’s new corporate identity, and will stand out in retail environments.

"We’ve seen a slight shift in the buying habits of high-end digital imaging customers," said Chris Chute, senior analyst within IDC’s imaging group. "While CompactFlash still holds a memory card leadership position in the professional-level photography segment, many popular high-end digital cameras now accept SD and Memory Stick PRO. Lexar is maintaining alignment with the market by further strengthening its professional-level product line by offering additional popular memory card formats," he added.

Lexar’s Professional Series of products include a wide variety of flash memory cards and capacities, including the award-winning 80X speed-rated CompactFlash, Active Memory™ CompactFlash and LockTight™ CompactFlash, with capacities including 512MB, 1GB, 2GB and 4GB. In addition, the professional-level line-up includes Lexar’s 8GB CompactFlash, speed-rated at 40X, and Professional Secure Digital, speed-rated at 60X and shipping in capacities of 1GB. Lexar defines "X" within its speed-rating system as equivalent to a minimum write speed capability of 150 kilobytes per second.

Image Rescue™ software from Lexar and a trial version of Photo Mechanic™ from Camera Bits, the popular image browsing software currently exclusively distributed at retail by Lexar, will also ship in the newly designed packaging. Currently, Lexar distributes Photo Mechanic version 4.3 of this application.

Professional Memory Stick PRO is the most recent addition to Lexar’s professional line-up. Speed rated at 80X, equivalent to a minimum sustained read and write speed of 12MB per second, the new Professional Memory Stick PRO is designed to meet the needs of both professionals and consumers who require the fastest data read and write speeds available in the Memory Stick PRO format. Featuring an industrial design that differs slightly from earlier versions of this format, including a black plastic housing and opaque plastic underside, the Professional Memory Stick PRO cards will ship later this month in capacities of 512MB and 1GB.

About Lexar Media, Inc.

Lexar is a leading marketer and manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, card readers and ATA controller technology for the digital photography, consumer electronics, industrial and communications markets. The company holds over 81 issued or allowed controller and system patents, and licenses its technology to companies including Olympus, Samsung Electronics, SanDisk and Sony. For more information, please call 1-800-789-9418 or visit www.lexar.com