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Cowon D3 Plenue priced at $370, or $100 per inch of AMOLED
Want yourself a "Prestige" portable media player to make even legit smartphones blush in envy? Then the D3 Plenue from Cowon might just be for you, what with its 1080p video playback, 32GB of storage, Android 2.1 OS, and 3.7-inch, 800 x 480 AMOLED display. It's just that today we're finding the Prestige label also extends to its price, which Amazon has set at a mighty $370. That's not terrible when contrasted against unsubsidized pricing for comparable smartphones, but then this isn't a smartphone. Availability of the D3 Plenue is limited to an undated pre-order for the moment, giving you at least a little more time to deliberate on the value this souped-up PMP represents.
Motorola Xoom launching February 17th at Best Buy (update: priced at $700)
When we stumbled upon an $800 price for the Motorola Xoom yesterday, our instinctive reaction was to leap forward to the next obvious question: when? Well, that call has now been answered by an internal Best Buy document that's just dropped into our inbox, which explicitly pinpoints February 17th as the launch date for Moto's highly touted, Honeycomb-equipped tablet. Stock is expected to land at the big box retailer on February 16th, with the big party going down the day after. There's a note confirming that the Xoom will come with its promised 32GB of onboard storage, but anyone looking for confirmation or denial of the earlier pricing leak will be left disappointed. Guess we'll all have to set our calendar alerts for about a month from now and exercise patience in the mean time. [Thanks, dajarbot] Update: Our tipster has also uncovered a price: $699.99. That's a hundred green leaves south of Verizon's supposed pricing and should soothe a few agitated souls.
Motorola Xoom becomes official, headed to Verizon in Q1, upgradeable to 4G in Q2
Motorola has just outed its delicious Honeycomb tablet alongside another device, the LTE-equipped Bionic, on its official site. The company's CES press conference is ongoing right now, where the Xoom will presumably get its proper announcement. All we know so far is that this slate is headed to Verizon, the press release is still somewhere in the hidden parts of the internet. More soon! Update: The PR and full spec sheet are now embedded after the break. A 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 will power this 10.1-incher, while 4G connectivity will be made available as an update in Q2 following a Q1 launch. Other specs include a 1280 x 800 resolution, 5 megapixel camera, 720p video recording and 1080p video playback, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and finally, a healthy 32GB of onboard storage. The battery is rated to be capable of supporting 10 hours of video. Be still, our beating hearts! [Thanks, Pratik] %Gallery-112793% %Gallery-112807%
SuperTalent USB 3.0 Express RAM Cache drives join with Ceedo to make your apps portable (video)
There's no reason that a USB 3.0 device can't be quick enough to serve up an app, though most apps get finicky if you try to run them from removable storage on more than one computer. SuperTalent is trying to make that a little easier by bundling Ceedo Personal with its new USB 3.0 Express RAM Cache thumb drives. Ceedo effectively lets you install and run apps in a sandbox that can be moved from one machine to another, with the idea here being of course that you'd deploy that sandbox on your blazing new thumb drive and run those apps with wild abandon, as demonstrated in the video below. The drives start at $59 for 16GB then go up to $119 for 32GB and $209 for the 64GB model, but if you want the Ceedo bundles you'll need to pay $20 more for each. That is, at least, half what the software costs on its own.
Kingston introduces Class 4 32GB microSDHC card, charges dearly for the speed
Well, at least you've got options now. Just days after SanDisk's once-rare 32GB microSDHC card fell to $87, along comes Kingston with a nearly identical unit of its own. The difference? It's Class 4 instead of Class 2, which means that you can look forward to a 4MB/s minimum data transfer rate. Of course, you'll be paying dearly for the speed boost when it starts shipping on Monday with the card alone priced at $153. Slow and cheap, or pricey and snappy? Decisions, decisions...
SanDisk's 32GB microSDHC card falls below $100, is actually in stock
Holding out on upgrading that paltry 2GB microSD card that shipped in your Android device of choice? Hold no longer. Amazon is now stocking SanDisk's oh-so-capacious 32GB microSDHC card for just $89.73, which is notably lower than what it retailed for at launch. It's also readily available elsewhere on the web for around the same amount, with the "readily available" part equally as impressive as the "for really cheap" part. Of course, it's slower than molasses crawling uphill on a winter day (read: Class 2), but it's not like you'll be throwing this in your D3S and firing off 11 shots per second. Right?
Dell ships Precision M6500 laptop with 32GB of RAM: drill, baby, drill
Nah, that's not us yelling to dig deeper into oceanic unknowns -- it's a megaphone originating from Dell's campus in Round Rock. As the story goes, Dell's "oil and gas" consumers have been clamoring for more system memory on their mobile workstations, with the revamped Precision M6500 -- which allows them to "review larger slices of the earth to find oil, enabling faster and more accurate drilling to find oil and gas reserves." We say all that to mention the 32GB of system RAM that's now shipping on fully loaded M6500s, but with four RAM slots, that's not as difficult to accomplish as you might expect. Still, having 32GB in a single laptop is a rare sight these days, and if you aren't into coughing up a fistful of Benjamins for that, Dell's Precision M4500 is now available with 16GB of memory. You know, for running Maya with less lag... or something.
SanDisk's elusive 32GB microSDHC card on sale tomorrow at Verizon: $100 with a Droid X, $150 without
Oh, sure -- SanDisk's 32GB microSDHC card has been "shipping" since late March, but have you actually tried to find one? It's been a lesson in frustration for many, and while a few e-tailers have shown stock off and on, the card has generally evaded archivists who simply need an insane amount of available storage on their handset. Starting tomorrow, however, that should change. Verizon Wireless -- of all companies -- has somehow managed to become the "only retailer that offers customers the 32GB SanDisk microSDHC card." We're assuming it's referring to brick and mortar retailers, but at any rate, the gem will be on sale tomorrow at VZW outlets for $149.99, or just $99.99 if you purchase one alongside Motorola's Droid X. The only trouble with that? You're stuck figuring out what to do with the 16GB microSDHC card that ships inside of the phone. Thank heavens for the Bay, right?
Nokia N8 gets a 32GB model hint, nearly user-replaceable battery
Nokia's N8 might not be for sale but it's certainly out in the internet wilds. A few, presumably pre-production, units have already made their way onto some Arabic sites for dissection and lustful right-to-left analysis. SaudiMac had the good fortune to see some early retail packaging with "N8-00 / 32GB" printed (and later Photoshopped out) directly on the box. While that could indicate the N8's support for 32GB microSD cards, we're guessing (hoping?) it's an unannounced model sporting 32GB of fixed internal flash memory to accompany the 16GB model already announced. We've also got a user from the ArabNokia forums demonstrating the removal of the N8's battery -- a simple operation requiring the removal of two screws to slide the battery out of the chassis' bottom similar to the HTC Legend. The whole procedure is so simple that we have to wonder why Nokia didn't take the industrial design a step further and make the standard 1,200mAh Nokia BL-4D battery (used in the N97 mini) user replaceable in the first place. Regardless, it's good to know that you can swap the Li-Ion battery in a pinch or whenever you finally hit the lifetime recharge cap -- you didn't need that warranty anyway, right? [Thanks, Ali F.]
SanDisk 32GB microSDHC vs. SanDisk 4GB microSDHC... fight!
We know which one we'd rather take -- but alas, we came packing the meager 4GB card in our personal phone as we sauntered up to SanDisk's booth at a CTIA press event this evening, not that juicy 32GB bad boy right above it. At the top there you can see the silicon that goes into each and every 32GB microSDHC to come out of the foundry, and it's pretty insane: 8 layers of 32nm 3-bit-per-cell memory. The SanDisk rep we spoke to said that other companies not capable of pulling off the 8 layer trick will be at a significant disadvantage, since they'll need to go with a higher density at the brutal cost of a lower yield rate -- and as we all know, a chunk of silicon that's failed QA is little more than a paperweight (and not a very effective one at that). We'll take three.
SanDisk ships 32GB microSDHC card for $200
Our 16GB microSDHC card has been treating us well since shipping early last year, but obviously no capacity is capacious enough. SanDisk has just announced that a Class 2, 32GB version of its microSDHC card is now shipping (remember that "something big" thing?), bringing gobs and gobs (and gobs) of storage space to whatever phones still support it. SanDisk claims that this is the first of its kind, but you can bet that other memory outfits won't be far behind in matching it. It should be hitting e-tailers momentarily for $199.99 (and around £200 if you're in the UK, we're told), which is almost certainly more than the (subsidized) price of the phone you'll be sliding it into.
Samsung announces 64GB moviNAND flash, 32GB microSD card
It's been quite a while since Samsung announced the first actual memory device to result from its 30nm manufacturing process, but it's now back with an announcement for another pair of memory products that should both be hitting the market relatively soon. The larger of those is a new 64GB moviNAND embedded memory device, which joins the company's existing 32GB, 16GB, 8GB and 4GB options, and measures just 1.4mm thick while still packing 16 30nm-class 32Gb MLC NAND chips and a controller. That's joined by a new 32GB microSD card, which fully doubles the capacity of the highest capacity microSD cards currently on the market, and is apparently now being sampled by OEMs with mass production slated to begin sometime next month.
Ask Engadget: Best SSD under $150?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget question is coming to us from David, who's looking to get himself a boot drive that's fast, durable, fast, reliable and fast. "I'm looking for a solid state drive, around 32 to 64GB, for use in my web server. The drive will contain my web sites and the operating system, either Windows Server 2008 R2 or Ubuntu. Large storage is handled by a separate RAID array, so capacity is not an issue. Rather, I am looking for the fastest, longest-lasting, and most reliable drive under $150 that is suitable to my application. Any thoughts? Thanks!" SSDs still aren't cheap, but the smaller ones have definitely come down quite aways in price. Anyone got a particular 32GB or 64GB platter that they're hearting at the moment? Go ahead, let your crush be known.
Samsung slims down NAND memory packaging, wafer-thin gadgets to follow
Good old Samsung and its obsession with thinness. After finally letting its 30nm 32Gb NAND chips out of the bag in May, the Korean memory maker has now successfully halved the thickness of its octa-die memory package to a shockingly thin 0.6mm (or 0.02 inches). The new stacks will start out at a 32GB size, though the real benefits are likelier to be felt down the line when the ability to pack bits more densely pays off in even higher storage capacities. Cellphones, media players and digital cameras will inevitably take the lion's share, but we're hopeful -- eternal optimists that we are -- that this could accelerate the decline of SSD prices to a borderline affordable level. Intel and Micron promised us as much, how about Samsung delivering it?
TDK's heavily stacked 320GB disc shows its nearly-clear face at CEATEC
As with pretty much every other optical disc out there that claims to hold a near-infinite amount of data, we're still skeptical about TDK's ability to actually bring to market the 320GB spinner you see above. But hey -- it's got ten 32GB layers and it's practically see-through. Did you really expect us to walk on by without clicking the shutter even once? Exactly.%Gallery-74888%
TDK stacks 10 layers on a single 320GB disc
Even though we have yet to see the long-hinted 100GB and 200GB prototype Blu-ray discs as real products, TDK is looking beyond that, ready to display 320GB ten-layer platters at CEATEC 2009 that can be read and written with current blue laser technology. Key in stacking so many layers is improving the transmittance of the outermost layer as seen above - that nearly clear one on the right doesn't require a more powerful laser to get through. The only thing we can't see? When or if any of these will actually be released. [Via Hot Hardware]
Zune HD unboxing and hands-on
The Zune HD is soon to be officially out on the streets, and we've got the official Engadget hands-on / unboxing. Now, we were excited as all get-out to wrap our paws around the Tegra-powered PMP, but some of that luster has worn off since popping this baby out of its extremely attractive packaging. Why is that, you ask? Well, Microsoft decided to hold on loading up any usable software until the new Zunes were out to market. What that means is that we have yet to do any serious testing with the new device -- despite having the gem sitting right here. We can tell you that the Zune HD is most definitely a thing of beauty as far as gadget standards are concerned, and while the only media we've been able to enjoy is the big M's demo video, we have been marveling at the clarity and crispness of that OLED display. Obviously we've got a proper review coming soon, but we take this stuff pretty seriously and don't like to offer our opinion till we've spent some quality time with a device. You can expect a look at both the music and media playback capabilities of the ZHD, as well as the new Zune integration into Xbox Live, Windows Media Center, and all other kinds of connected-world goodness. Till then, feast your eyes on the galleries below, and quietly curse Microsoft for handing us a neutered Zune. Update: As a commenter points out below, these devices are being sold to end users in the same condition our unit is in -- namely, without any real functioning software. It's a pretty unusual move for a company like Microsoft to put devices into the hands of consumers with no functionality at all, but it seems the Zune team was cranking till the last minute. Let's hope all the hard work pays off! %Gallery-72768% %Gallery-72771%
Intel and Micron announce smallest, cheapest NAND flash yet
Hynix was first out of the gate with triple-level-cell flash memory, but Intel and Micron just pushed the MLC state of the art with their new 34nm three-bits-per-cell NAND, which they say will produce even smaller and cheaper 32Gb chips than those currently on the market. That means we should be seeing some monster storage in some tiny packages later this year when these guys ship -- everyone ready for another round of flash drive purchases?[Via CNET]
Super Talent's Pico USB drive: still world's smallest, now 32GB
While USB flash drives are now available in sizes that likely dwarf your own HDD, Super Talent's Pico line isn't looking to compete on sheer capaciousness. What it lacks in capacity, so to speak, it makes up for in size -- or, the lack thereof, we should say. The outfit's "world's smallest*" drive just jumped from 8GB to 32GB, and considering that there's at least a marginal chance that this thing slips out of your palm / pocket / etc. and into a puddle, Super Talent even threw in a dash of water resistance. A half dozen models are expected to ship this week, with prices ranging from $85 to $99. Too bad you won't even be able to find it between the couch cushions after it arrives.*Image probably isn't to scale, but it might be.
Sony's 32GB Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo HX proves that product naming is hard
What's not to love here? Just look at that handsome blister pack, ready to mince flesh in your enthusiasm to get at Sony's largest and most convolutedly named Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo HX. The 32GB stick is rated at 20MBps reads or 15MBps writes when using the bundled USB adapter. Imagine, had you purchased pretty much any device other than that Cyber-shot, Handycam, or Alpha shooter from Sony you could have been enjoying 30MBps read/writes from 32GB SDHC class 10 cards. Nope, no availability date or pricing announced, how could that information possibly be useful in a press release?
