Solid state drives (SSDs) are clearly the wave of the future for mobile devices. The drives are faster, lighter, cooler-running and more power efficient than their traditional hard disk drive (HDD) counterparts. The two dings in SSD's armor currently are the comparatively low storage capacities and high cost of entry.

In the case of Samsung's 32GB SSDs, the 1.8" variety will cost you $434 while the 2.5" version will rings up at $699. Stepping up to Samsung's 2.5" 64GB SSD will set you back a whopping $1,299.

SanDisk is looking to drop the price of SSDs for the entry-level market with its new uSSD 5000 SSD series. The USB-based drives will be used in sub-$250 PCs and will be embedded directly onto motherboards.

"The low-cost educational PC category is an emerging market for flash storage where low cost, ruggedness and low power consumption will be the primary factors for broad-based adoption," said SanDisk general manager Greg Rhine. "At 2GB, the uSSD 5000 solid state drive delivers the necessary storage capacity for low-cost PCs at significantly less cost than conventional hard drives, while meeting performance and reliability requirements for this market."

The uSSD 5000 packaging measures just 27mm x 38mm and is roughly one-fourth the size of a traditional 1.8" HDDs used in mobile applications.

SanDisk will begin sampling the uSSD 5000 within the next month and it will be available in sizes ranging from 1GB to 8GB.


Source from DailyTech

Anyone who was young in the 80’s will immediately think of the big, square cassette tape players when they hear the words Sony Walkman. The younger geeks will be glad to know that no longer is 80’s tech alone associated with the Walkman moniker.

Sony today announced its new NWZ-A810 Walkman video player. The A810 series features three different size capacities – 2GB, 4GB and 8GB allowing it to store a goodly bit of music. Sony equips the A810 series with a 2-inch QVGA display sporting 320x240 pixels.

Everything seems to be going pink these days, with self-defense weapons taking on the feminine hue, the female readers will be glad to hear that Sony offers the A810 series in pink as well as black, blue, silver and white.

Looking at the images of the A810 it is not going to win any awards for style, but it packs in some decent specifications. Audio formats supported are MP3, WMA, AAC-LC, and Linear PCM10. MP3 should make it compatible with the Wal-Mart DRM-free store and LimeWire’s upcoming store.

Also included is a five band equalizer and playback of MPEG4 and M4V video playback along with JPEG image support. The device charges via USB and needs three hours for a full charge and 1.5 hours for 80% charge. Playback time is around 33 hours for music and 8 hours for video.

Source from DailyTech