not now and maybe never. not unusual for retail to double or triple by the time it gets to market. or shortly after. like some frsky rx and the flysky 9x radio did. almost certainly 9xr will too.

Originally Posted by dave1993

no sd. surprising how many insist on $1000 feature for $50 radio.

SD card support would be pretty cheap to add. I don't think I would bundle it with an SD card to keep costs down though. But then again just what do you expect for $50?

SD cards are just a couple I/O lines into the SPI peripheral of the microcontroller. Just requires the cost of the SD holder and a cut out in the case, which is peanuts to add.

Si.

a card reader is just a couple of dollars

Rather cents... is not a "reader" with electronics inside, just a connector, this is the search term you must input to find them online. 10 for $3.

and if you want it with the board http://www.ebay.it/itm/Perfect-SD-Ca...item4cfcc47f2f

again the real issue is software resources. the avr chip simply dont have capacity for the required file system. even basic fat32 routines would overflow memory let alone ntfs or the new xhc format. now if this were arm based.... anyway sd is another one of those things like 3rd joystick that some minority demand but little real benefit. nice to show off at the field but few practical advantages for model memory storage over internal flash.

btw note the board in that link is little more than a connector attached to the socket. "smart" sd interfaces cost a lot more. go to sparkfun for a reality check on that.

Originally Posted by SimonChambers

SD cards are just a couple I/O lines into the SPI peripheral of the microcontroller.

But that requires the microcontroller to have a free SPI port. As one of the requirements of the 9xr was to be directly compatible with existing 3rd party firmwares for the 9x, the microcontroller and connections had to be the same. Which means no free SPI port, just like on the 9x. Its pins are used for trim keys if I remember well.
Again it's a $50 radio. If you want SD card and actually make use of it with voice prompts and telemetry logging, go see the frsky radios

It would be interesting to see if, after the 9XR was released, there was a demand for a high end version with stuff that people are discussing for around the $100 mark.

Originally Posted by BrettAltea

It would be interesting to see if, after the 9XR was released, there was a demand for a high end version with stuff that people are discussing for around the $100 mark.

Yes. There is such demand. See the X12D thread. That family of radios is the upgrade path from the 9XR.

Originally Posted by cold wombat

Yes. There is such demand. See the X12D thread. That family of radios is the upgrade path from the 9XR.

Not really an upgrade path. One uses DSMX and the other uses FrSky. Yes you could use the 9XR with a FrSky module however you'd be better going for the FrSky X9D as it has telemetry.

The 9XR uses DSMX through a module, which you could replace by an frsky one. The X9D has integrated frsky with telemetry, but you can also put a DSMX module in the back slot if you feel like it

I get the impression that the X12D was a result of the impending 9XR. Hopefully some smartypants will figure out how to Hack the 9XR to add some ot the other things that Frsky put into theirs.

Originally Posted by Kilrah

The 9XR uses DSMX through a module, which you could replace by an frsky one. The X9D has integrated frsky with telemetry, but you can also put a DSMX module in the back slot if you feel like it

I didn't think there were standalone DSMX modules available yet? Could be wrong tho...

HK released one about 2 weeks ago:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...mpatible_.html

It's buggy, but they'll likely solve that. There wasn't a confirmation yet whether the 9XR would have an integrated or module-based DSM transmitter, but one of HK's answers saying they "tested it thoroughly on 9XR which is what it was originally designed for" seems to point towards the module solution... even if probably a slightly different version to use the internal antenna connection.