One of the reasons I shy away from any Sony branded product like phones and cameras is because Sony tends to use its own proprietary Memory Stick format that costs much more than the common and universal SD card formats. Sony Ericsson phones use Memory Stick Micro (M2) cards for memory expansion, and in the face of falling profits, Sony Ericsson has seen the light of forcing buyers to use proprietary, and more expensive memory formats.

TrustedReviews reports that Sony Ericsson has announced that it will be dropping the M2 format in favor of the less costly and more widely available microSD card format for its handsets. Only Sony and Sony Ericsson use the Memory Stick format and over the last few months SD formats have been making their way into more Sony products.

Is this the death bell for the Memory Stick format? Sony hasn’t come and said that it will drop the format altogether, but dropping it from the Sony Ericsson line of mobile phones is a good indication that is the direction Sony is going. Sony Ericsson has also announced that it will join the universal charger format and use micro USB in all its products for charging.

[via TrustedReviews]