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Dell gets official with Latitude D430, Precision M4300 laptops
At long last, Dell's ultraportable Latitude D430 is getting official, and just so it doesn't have to brave the new world alone, the Precision M4300 mobile workstation is tagging along. The 12-inch D430 will of course boast a widescreen WXGA display, up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Intel's GMA 950 integrated graphics, an Intel Core 2 Duo (or Solo) processor, an optional 32GB SSD, 802.11n WiFi, optional fingerprint reader, magnesium alloy casing, Strike Zone hard drive protection, and a slew of ports to boot. The beefier M4300 comes stocked with up to 2.4GHz of Intel Core 2 Duo power, a 15.4-inch display, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, NVIDIA's 512MB Quadro FX 360M graphics, up to 160GB of hard drive space, and 802.11n WiFi. Both units are available to configure as we speak, and while the 12-incher starts at $1,509 sans many luxuries, the M4300 rings up at $1,750 before you start bumping up the specs.
Engadget at Digital Experience New York
Digital Experience is a bi-annual press event wherein dozens of your favorite tech companies corral hundreds of your favorite tech journalists, fill them up with free food and booze, and attempt to squeeze a little more coverage out of already-announced products. The theme for this year's New York show -- held last night at the Metropolitan Pavilion -- was British Invasion, and while we certainly appreciated the Beatles cover band, darts competitions, and of course the Bass- and Boddingtons-serving HP Notebook Pub (pictured above, although we still prefer the Sun beer server), the choice to offer traditional English cuisine was, quite frankly, not that well thought out. Nonetheless, we braved numerous flying darts and sketchy-looking meat pies to photograph a few devices we thought you'd enjoy; click on to check out the highlights...
Fujitsu's 12.1-inch T8140 tablet with SSD: 3.3-pounds, 11.3-hours
So you liked the looks of Fujitsu's tiny T4220 12.1-inch convertible tablet, right? Only that 3 hours off battery was a deal breaker. No worries, meet the smaller, lighter, and more efficient Lifebook T8140. We're talking an Intel 1.06GHz U7500 Core 2 Duo ULV processor and 32GB SSD (yes, Solid State Disk) packed into a chassis measuring 1.3-inches / 3.3-pounds and capable of operating at up to 11.3 hours off long-haul battery. Hell, it'll even go 7.2-hours off standard battery if weight is your biggest concern, sissy. All that and still packing a 12.1-inch, 1,280 x 800 resolution. Toss in Vista for suits and 1GB DDR2 memory and you're looking at ¥265,000 (about $2,650) when these pop in Japan sometime late July. [Via Impress]
Samsung's 64GB SSDs: ready to roll
For all the 64GB SSDs announced, only one manufacturer has the skillz to bring them to market: Samsung. Starting today, Sammy is mass producing the world's first 64GB, 1.8-inch SSD. Right, the ideal size for UMPCs and super slim ultra-portables. No word on price but it's not like you'll find these up for retail anyway. We expect 'em to go OEM-only baby as $1,000 (at least) premiums inside your latest VAIO, Latitude, Lifebook, and Sammy's own Q40 and Q1 Ultra machines to name a few. Apple too, if there's any life to that ultra-portable rumor.
PNY unveils SSDs for laptops, iPods, and more
They told us they were coming, now sure enough, PNY has loosed their line-up of Solid State Disks. Available in 1.8- and 2.5-inch profiles, the new SSDs feature up to 66MBps read and 55MBps write speeds and standard ZIF, micro-SATA, 44-pin IDE, and regular ol' SATA interfaces for drop-in replacement of hard disks in things like iPods (you wish PNY) and laptops -- right, the same price as SanDisk. Unfortunately, you'll have to be an OEM to take order (starting today) of the 2.5-inch, 32GB jobbie which costs about $350 when purchased in quantity. By Q3, PNY (and everyone else it seems) expects to be shipping their 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch SSDs in 64GB and 128GB capacities, respectively.
SanDisk bumps 1.8- and 2.5-inch SSD to 64GB
While not nearly as capacious as PQI's 256GB behemoth of an SSD, SanDisk is creeping ever closer by bumping its 1.8- and 2.5-inch SSD to 64GB. Previously capped at 32GB, the SATA 5000 and UATA 5000 series are now doubling in capacity and ready to become your next drop-in hard drive replacement. The devices reportedly sport a sustained read rate of around 67Mbps, a random read rate of 7,000 IOPS, and consume about half as much energy as its traditional HDD counterparts. No word just yet on pricing, but SanDisk is reportedly planning to offer up 64GB engineering samples in Q3, while mass production is scheduled to commence by the year's end.
$5,000 SanDisk cards: Solid Gold but still can't dance
What could be better than sweet, NANDy flash? Precious metal versions of course. We're not talking faux, Thanko gold here folks, these cards are Marilyn McCoo baby, solid gold. The 150g CompactFlash card and 35g SDHC card are up for grabs in a SanDisk Hong Kong contest ending June 22nd. Winners of the CF card will be pocketing about $5,000 which we'd promptly flip for the biggest 2.5-inch, SATA SSD we could find. [Via Everything USB]
PQI debuts 256GB 2.5-inch SSD drive
We've seen 256GB and even 512GB SSD drives before, but they've so far been confined to the larger 3.5-inch form factor -- not exactly the ideal solution to fulfill our dream of an all-SSD laptop with more storage than we're ever likely to use. Well, it looks like Taiwanese manufacturer PQI is starting to bring that excessively-demanding dream a little closer to reality, recently unveiling a 2.5-inch SSD drive with a full 256GB of storage space. Unfortunately, there's no word on what it'll cost, although we're sure it'll be enough to dampen our enthusiasm considerably. That's apparently not all PQI has up its sleeve though, with the company also set to release a 32GB SSD ExpressCard, a 32GB 1.8-inch SSD drive, and a high-speed 16GB CompactFlash card for good measure.
PNY to offer next SSD lineup
More of a heads up than anything else, PNY issued a release today stating its intention to debut is new SSD drive lineup at Computex early next month. We don't know the sizes or prices on these things, but we do know that every time a new company adds their products to the mix it only means everyone else has to work harder to make their gear cheaper and better -- and the sooner we can take out all the spinning disk drives from our machines, the better.
Kingston planning to reveal DDR3 HyperX RAM at Computex
Last last year, Kingston unveiled its then-blazing fast HyperX DDR2 RAM modules, and just as you're finally paying those couple of 2GB kits off, the same company is apparently planning to up the ante. Reportedly, Kingston is looking to reveal its 512MB / 1GB DDR3 1500MHz HyperX and DDR2 800MHz low latency memory modules at Computex, which should play nicely with Intel's DDR3-friendly Bearlake chipset. The DIMMs are expected to be "nearly twice as fast (over 20Gbps) as today's highest speed DDR2 counterparts," and the lower voltage (1.5v compared to 1.8v) claims to provide a "more efficient memory solution for both mobile and server platforms." Of course, pricing and availability deets weren't fleshed out just yet, but the second week in June isn't too far away.[Via Gizmag]Update: Despite statements to the contrary, Kingston pinged to say it's not debuting any SSD drives at Computex! The nerve!
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Sony Vaio TZ sports 32GB SSD and 160GB disk -- the best of both worlds
Oh hotness incarnate, the VAIO TZ lives. Sure we peeped those catalog shots more than two weeks ago, but there's nothing like seeing the 11.1-inch ultra-portable in the fo' realz. The specs are in line with what we already knew with one tiny surprise: the system can apparently (judging by janky machine translation) be configured to run both a 2.5-inch 160GB disk and a 1.8-inch 32GB SSD simultaneously -- store the Vista OS and your critical apps and data on the lickity quick flash drive with everything else bunged into the traditional spinner. Nice. The TZ also features a newly designed keyboard carried over from earlier Sony's and similar to the one found on the Apple MacBook. The Vaio TZ starts shipping in Japan May 26th which means the rest of the world should get theirs shortly thereafter. One more pic after the break.[Via Impress, thanks William M.]
Lexar rolls out 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB ExpressCard SSDs
We already knew that Lexar had an 8GB ExpressCard SSD up its sleeve, but it seems that the company just can't get enough of that high-speed solid state storage, today announcing 4GB and 16GB cards in addition to officially announcing the 8GB model. From the looks of it, both the 4GB and 8GB models will give a peak data transfer speed of 250 MB/s (we assume the 16GB will be the same as well), with all three coming bundled with Lexar's auto-backup software, and each ready for use with Vista's ReadyBoost feature. While the whole lot of them are supposedly shipping now, there only appears to be pricing details available for the 4GB and 8GB models, with them setting you back $130 and $200, respectively.
SSD prices in freefall -- won't overtake hard disks anytime soon
So in addition to dropping a couple of high-capacity disks this morning, Samsung also gave us some interesting (albeit, depressing) insight into their thoughts on Solid State Disk penetration at a session on SSD vs. hard drives at a product conference in Japan. Big stuff when you consider Samsung's pioneering role to supplant traditional 1.8-inch hard disk drives with flash-lovin' SSDs. We've already heard from Sandisk that SSD prices should fall by about 60% annually. Nice, but SSDs are currently 5x the cost of their mechanical brethren: $7.5/GB compared to $1.4/GB for HDDs. Even by 2010, Samsung (backed by DataQuest research) still estimates at least a 3.x gap: $1.9/GB for SSDs vs $0.9/GB for HDDs according to Hwang's law. In other words, we'll be paying a significant premium for flash memory's lickity quick boots and greater reliability long into the future. Still, a 128GB SSD for $243? Give us two, please.
Dell joins the fray, offers SSD in Latitude D420, D620
Not a moment too soon, Dell has finally decided to bite and offer up solid state disc drives in a couple of its Latitudes. Joining Sony, Fujitsu, and Samsung (just to name a few), the Texas powerhouse has just announced that users can satisfy their SSD cravings by snapping up a D420 or D620 ATG laptop, both of which can contain a 1.8-inch 32GB SSD drive from SanDisk. According to the release, the drives should be available right now as an add-on option for the US market (Europe and Asia to "follow soon"), but opting for one of these suckas will cost you $549 more than a traditional HDD.[Via Electronista]
Transcend joins the party, intros 32GB SSD drive
Shortly after releasing a 16GB SSD for ExpressCard slots, Transcend is joining SanDisk and TDK (among others) in the cost-effective 32GB arena. The company's 32GB 2.5-inch IDE solid state disc sports a "tough outer metal case," anti-shock features, "no moving parts," and the lower power consumption we've come to expect from these guys. The drive clocks in at just 7.4-millimeters thick and even touts built-in ECC (Error Correction Code) functionality that purportedly "ensures highly reliable data transfer and increases your systems energy efficiency." Unfortunately, the firm hasn't divulged details just yet around pricing, but we do know that an 8GB (TS8GSSD25) and 16GB (TS16GSSD25) flavor will be sitting alongside the 32GB TS32GSSD25 right about now.[Via PCLaunches]
Lexar's 8GB ExpressCard SSD sneaks on the scene
While Lexar does a fine job competing in the flash memory arena, it appears that the outfit is giving it a go in the solid state disc realm as well. According a marginally descriptive product page, Lexar is offering up an 8GB ExpressCard SSD, which should go nicely above that 120GB PCMCIA NAND drive as you attempt to cram more storage into peripheral slots than inside your laptop's casing. Moreover, the device features a peak data transfer rate of 250Mbps, and while it doesn't appear to be available for shipment just yet, it'll run you a penny under $200 when it formally launches.[Thanks, Anthony P.]
SimpleTech announces 512GB and 256GB 3.5-inch SSD drives
You know how it is, five minutes ago we were not aware of our dire need for 512GB of ridiculously fast NAND storage, but it's all so clear now: there can be no substitute. SimpleTech has announced the Zeus-IOPS SSD 512GB and 256GB SSD drives, which offer up the largest flash drive capacities we're aware of in a 3.5-inch enclosure. Performance ain't no slouch either, with SimpleTech claiming 200x performance over 15,000 RPM enterprise hard drives, with better reliability to boot. SimpleTech wouldn't come clean on an exact price, but it expects prices for SSD to drop to $2 per GB by 2012, meaning that in five years you can get one of these 512 giggers for the low, low price of $1,000 -- and we're guessing around ten times that when the drive launches in Q3 2007. The 256GB is available now.[Thanks, Kelly]
Fujitsu bets the farm on SSDs
Good news SSD fans: Fujitsu has halted their planned production of 1.8-inch hard disk drives due to increased interest in using solid state disks in handheld devices. A Fujitsu spokesman said, "We want to see if the market tips toward flash, or if it stays with hard drives." The move effectively leaves the 1.8-inch HDD market to the likes of Seagate, Toshiba, and Samsung. It's interesting to note that Fujitsu already offers SSD drives as options in their Lifebook Q and B laptops and P1610 Tablet PC. However, "their" SSDs aren't home cooked, they come by way of Samsung. To the best of our knowledge Fujitsu has no formal plans to enter the burgeoning flash drive industry at all; a market where Samsung already reigns supreme with Toshiba (via their partnership with Sandisk) coming on strong. With SSDs dropping in price by about 60% annually, we can't say that we blame Fujitsu for bailing.[Via iLounge, thanks Erion 1]
Sony's 12.1-inch VAIO G bunged with SSD
The ultimate in ultra-portable lust just reached a whole new level of sexy. Sony's VAIO G1 is now available with a 32GB Solid State Disk option. That's right; silent, durable, lickity-quick SSD making this the world's lightest 12.1-inch laptop at just 1.89-pounds. Hell, it even extends the standard 6-hour battery an additional 30 minutes or 12.5-hours off its fat, extended-use cousin. Of course, the SSD will cost ya: a ¥65,000 (about $545) price premium over the staid, 40GB hard disk option. But damn, it's tempting.[Via Impress]
Transcend intros 16GB SSD for ExpressCard slots
While we're always looking for a way to shave precious milliseconds off of our boot time, and Vista's ReadyBoost feature has proven somewhat effective at this task, it's not likely that you'll find us spending over a thousand bucks to add Transcend's 16GB SSD ExpressCard to our laptop anytime soon. Obviously you can also use the new card for storage, but unless you really have mission critical apps that need blazing fast access times, you're probably better off spending that $1,337 (ya, really!) on a 10,000 RPM HDD or bags and bags of delicious candy. And if you really need to scratch that ReadyBoost itch, a $30 thumb drive should do you just right.Update: Transcend just wrote us a rather angry note claiming that the price we quote here is way off. Straight out of the horse's mouth, this 16 gigger will only set you back $256.45, with a 2GB version available for as little as $50.
