Datel 4GB PSP HDD and battery combo
By Paul Miller 
posted Oct 7th 2005 9:20AM
posted Oct 7th 2005 9:20AM
Datel Design & Development—the creator of the X2 replacement battery for the PSP—is combining a 4GB HDD with their X2 battery to get around the current 2GB storage limit of the Memory Stick Pro Duo. A cable connects the drive to your PSP through the Memory Stick slot and you're up and running; which means a lot less mess than a totally external drive. You'll be paying about the cost of your PSP for all this storage convenience, though, at £139 ($248). Should be available October 20th.
[Thanks, Pothole51]
That price is incredibly reasonable, if you consider that's probably a microdrive combined with a LiIon battery. Neither are all that cheap. Imagine if this was an accessory for a DSLR. Same specs, it would cost at least twice that much, because they're taking us for a ride on all camera accessories.
So, you'd have a $250 PSP and a $250 battery + 4GB HDD.
Frankly, I'd rather buy a laptop for that kind of money, if all you're going to be doing is emulation.
By the time we have a kickass PSP, we'll be too poor to afford a PS3.
If that thing was cheaper...say 75-100 bucks (impossible I know) that would be the PSP's killer app..
That is pretty sweet.
For the true fanatic, but cool nonetheless.
Do they have a DS version?
Just in time to combat apple for a hard drive based entertainment system. Now if Sony would just listen and come out with a propriatary system for this we would be in business. If you already have a PSP and have the cash go ahead.
This opens up for putting iso games on the hard drive.
they should offer one w/o a microdrive for like 50, then u just add your own, it would be much cheaper that way
i agree tom. give me a multi-card reader and a battery for $50-$100.....
#4 JinKazama
Increased storage space does not equal a "killer app". An actual application FOR that storage would be a "killer app". If it were "killer", that is...
God I hate the way that stupid phrase is thrown around... way to "get behind the arrow" buddy...
Methinks it is a fantastic idea. but it is a little bit pricey. I man i paid enough as it was for my psp and if they were to reduce the HDD/battery pack a little say...about £100 then i would surely buy one but until then i am gonna stick to just playing the games and invest my time in that. Also i have another concern.. the extra weight brought on by the HDD/battery. how lightweight is it. and if so, if you are like me prone to wrist pains than would that make matters worse. the thing must weigh a bit wont it?
Expect Sony to release a firmware update any day now to prevent this from working.
Is it really a microdrive or is it just a bunch of flash memory like an ipod nano?
The complainers here, you do realize that a PSP 2GB duo memory card will cost you about ~$150. So basically you are doubling the memory storate and getting a battery for only $250.
This is a pretty nice deal. I guess performance is going to make or break this thing.
I can't imagine a micro drive/li batt combo in that small form factor. Have you felt how hot an X2 battery gets when recharging? Think that might have a negative effect on the hdd?
#8 chudgoo
You feel special now
Geez...get a life dude sorry if I missed out on the "geeks guide to talkin tech" book, I used it as a figure of speech...not a literal statement...
It's too expensive. I would love to buy one though. :(
This is about $50.oo too much.
It will give us the opportunity to store more movies, while flying and watching. As far as emulation, who needs it.?
I agree, Sony is dead set against anyone making a profit except them, so expect it to be disabled in the near future.
It is kinda sad how jealously sony seems to be guarding the PSP. It almost makes one wish for Microsoft style bogarting.
i.e. simply buying potential competitors out before they bring their products to market, slapping an MS label on the product and releasing it at monopolistic rates. Sure we pay through the nose, but at least we get the product. But I really don't think sony want's the PSP to expand to far lest it start canibalizing too many other product lines that they still need to turn a profit.
So I doubt they'll be very quick to release anything like this. If they respond to customer dissatisfaction in ANY way it will prbably be...YET ANOTHER firmware up date that will allow the PSP to use 4gb memory sticks which sony will sell us for $400 a piece...
Well, actually not me...I don't own a PSP (yet). There are a few things on it that I find interesting, but not quite enough yet for me to buy it. I'm waiting for these 'Universal Media Discs' to get a LITTLE more universal first...
But, with this add on and that keyboard we were promised many moons ago, you'd almost HAVE a little laptop. Particulalry if Sony throws out a small 'Office' suite (based on Star office maybe ?). But that would still add up to about $550. And you definitely can get a Walmart laptop for around that much, or wait for THE NEXT Dell special offer (You might have time for a cup of coffee before a new one pops up).
....er...how does it work?? Wheres the data connection for the harddisk in the battery slot?
"If they can do 4, why not bump it up to 20?"
Maybe because there aren't 20GB microdrives.
i dont think it will attract too many customers to buy it at this price point.
i mean, if you just buy psp for games, you don't need that much space. (512 to 1GB would be enough for the saved data from games)
if you just wanna listen to music, a 4GB ipod nano is a much better choice (smaller than a psp, same price as this unit)
the people who really need this are the ones who watch movies and look at pictures on their psp's. but for those people, 4GB is probably still far from enough; it can only hold about 3 full length movies in good quality.
if this thing has a bigger hard drive (say, 20GB) at the same size then it will probably be a great product, and a lotta psp owners might consider buying 1 as long as they can afford it.
"Maybe because there aren't 20GB microdrives."
How about a 30 GB?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000A140H8/102-6523495-0730511?v=glance
#19. The hard drive uses an adaptor to go in the ms slot. i dont quite know how it would charge without having a cable that went under the psp to the charger slot. hmm seeing as this is using this adaptor, could we not just hack it and add another 4gb microdrive to it by extending cables etc? at the moment this may not be worth it, but when 10gb micro drives come out then maybe we should hack this and add out own micro drives? perfect mp3 player. would this be a simple as i just put it do u think? well nothing ever is!
If you look carefully at the pictures you can see that the HDD is seperate from the battery and that it goes on the same side of the PSP as the memory slot. The real question then is: do you have to replace the back of the psp with a new back that accepts the HDD, or is it a snap on back and if so how big is it?
waaaaay overpriced.
For the same $250 Apple manages to sell iPods with the same 4gb flash-based PLUS li-ion battery PLUS color screen PLUS still makes a tidy profit, so explain again why just 4gb + battery should cost $250?
oh and for those of u that keep saying "An actual application FOR that storage would be a "killer app"" you do know they have UMD emulators now right, so you can play the games off the memorystick?? Just the ability to run ~5 games off the 4gb and not have to stare at loading screens would make it a "killer app".
"For the same $250 Apple manages to sell iPods with the same 4gb flash-based PLUS li-ion battery PLUS color screen PLUS still makes a tidy profit, so explain again why just 4gb + battery should cost $250?"
Because it's the only one. Milk the consumer till competition arrives, then lower the prices to be competative.
John Doe, that's a bit harsh. Not all of us are geeks who are knowledgable on this stuff like yourself. Easy mistake to make, so back off a bit, okay? Thanks.
ps. Never mind. I should back off a bit myself...
Anyway, on topic, this looks brilliant, but I'm still not sure if it's worth it. Especially since I'm already spending enough money on the PSP and games.
.... burn.
ouch! Its gonna be handbags at 10 paces between these two!
Will you both shut the hell up you could put this 60gb baby in there.
Toshiba - 60GB (MK6006GAH) 8.0mm 1.8inch
http://www.compumusic.com/i34688.htm
I'm gonna pre-order this tomorrow.
Those thinking this is expensive: please consider that a 2GB Memorystick costs way over $200, and here you get DOUBLE that storage AND a 3600mAh battery!!
That's pretty smart, but the price, you could buy alot of other gaming crap with it. I know its cheap for what your getting but still this is definitly for hardcore PSP owners.
well the 2gb sandisk stick is around 180 plus tax and this thing is $250 and its a extra battery. hum very tempting to buy the 4gbX2. but then again we could see another price drop on pro duo memory lexar is going to be making pro duo memory now..so we may see 2gb pro duo go for around 130-150 and if its more around 130 I would rather buy two 2gb sticks...
Ey why don't you check the site of darkplantes again. They have updated it today. And now you can see that the hdd is pretty bulky!!! You have to push it on the back of your psp!! And you can't even take it with you in one of those bags for the psp made by sony, logitech, or whatever. You have a lot of storage, but it is very unhandy while e.g. gaming. Check darkplanets, the pics of it and the REVIEWS!!!
Had I known I would have to shell out more money for for more space I wouldn't have bought the PSP.
Sony thinks they are slick, the put the 1GB sticks on hold until they sell the lower ones then release the 1GB after good sells on the 512Mb and a few others. Then they start selling the 1GB while they work on the 2GB, In the mean time there is a New model of the PSP in the works with a 50GB HD. http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000827033322/
I think some of the "overpriced" anger here should be set squarely on the shoulders of PSP. Why is there even a requirment to have a memory slot? PSP's should already have at least 1gb of memory, especially since this is billed as an MP3 device as well. This is squarely an attempt by Sony to sell more Duo memory cards, and it's a shame. This is a "dinosaur" business model, and I'm therefore bad-mouthing Sony for doing it -- and will be sure to support the HD DVD drives in the future (rather than Sony's Blu Ray) because Sony is interested in nothing more than nickel and diming consumers to death. Pathetic. I commend Datel coming up with a solution, even though it's pricey, but hey -- it's an addon that is meant to correct a huge oversight by the evil empire called Sony.
1. you are all retarded.
2. the filesystem the PSP uses is FAT16. the largest supportable disk is therefore ... surprise!... 4gb. people have hooked up bigger drives to these already, and failed miserably.
that isn't to say that somone couldn't write make a completely new "dashboard" for the device,a dn run effing linux or whatever the hell you wanted to run on there, but why on earth you would want linux on a PSP is just beyond me.
3. "killer app" can be either... an application (noun - software) or 'the application of whatever'... (verb - to apply)
4. you are all retarded.
5. ???
6. profit.
7. that is all.
too bad i just bought a 1Gb card for half that price :-/. still, i think im gonna wait til the price comes down and they can figure out how to make a better, less freakishly huge, product.
yo. i really wont 1 of these. i would buy it off liksang.com cos it's the cheapest ive found, and still includes the battery that datel made with it. any questions email me peter88cramp@hotmail.com
aside from the epithets, Richard (post 39) has a point about the limits of the file structure,
(stupid archaic ... ARGH!)
however, seing as most of chip based "hard drive" technology is based on cramming large numbers of smaller memory chips into one board, perhapse a workaround of separated drives with the ability to toggle between them would work. not much better than separate memory sticks i suppose. IF sony releases a large hard drive version of the PSP, it will be interesting to see how they tackle this problem. maybe they will have to update the processor as well to acomodate a more beefy system, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for game play purposes, but might impair cross platform compatability.
And didn't we learn that harddisk space could be a major boon to gamplay with the XBOX, despite the big M's diminishing returns on console sales? I just hope sony doesn't get all proprietary happy like Apple. *shudders*
not that I'm badmouthing Apple.
don't hurt me!
1.Sony should just stop being gay and offer us cheap blank umd disks and burners so we don't have to spend $99999999999999999999999999999999 on 4gb hard drives. Thee is already piracy all over and they will never be able to permantly stop it ever.
2. you are al retarded
BEWARE: This is a good product, there is one downside. When you play MP3's there is lag every 40 seconds or so, lik a cd skipping. I have tried 3 of these HDD's and everyone of them did it. Buy at your own risk.
i have just accedently bought this 4gb ad-on for the psp and reading all you guys comments i am really regretting it.in my opinion i think it is very good and considering the price ( i bought it for £125 inc vat)and what it actually is, i think its very good value for money. not only do u get all that space, but u get double the gameplay time and you can get better grip on the psp whilst playing.