Big news! Palm has released a 4 GB hard drive built-in PDA...What's next for PPCs????

tallshorty · 05-31-05, 03:04 AM

I just read this in a magazine. Palm has released the first ever PDA with a built-in hard drive...4 GB!!!! Can you imagaine the possibilities with this much memory? Unbelievable! No more CF or SD cards. Enough room for all the music and movies you want! No more need to strategically allocate memory.

I can't wait until a pocket pc with an internal hard drive comes out...I bet it wont' be long...I smell on the horizon already. I'm definately going to be replacing my beloved x50v with one of those babies.

Here is a link: http://www.palmone.com/us/products/m...ers/lifedrive/
It's only $500 US (I don't think that's too bad)

[Hey mods: not sure where this thread belongs so move it as you please]

cerote · 05-31-05, 03:19 AM

Originally Posted by tallshorty

I just read this in a magazine. Palm has released the first ever PDA with a built-in hard drive...4 GB!!!! Can you imagaine the possibilities with this much memory? Unbelievable! No more CF or SD cards. Enough room for all the music and movies you want! No more need to strategically allocate memory.

I can't wait until a pocket pc with an internal hard drive comes out...I bet it wont' be long...I smell on the horizon already. I'm definately going to be replacing my beloved x50v with one of those babies.

Here is a link: http://www.palmone.com/us/products/m...ers/lifedrive/
It's only $500 US (I don't think that's too bad)

[Hey mods: not sure where this thread belongs so move it as you please]

A PPC with a built-in hard drive... that sounds really nice!
Although I'd still like to have the possibility to insert SD and/or CF cards, to see the pictures taken with my digital camera for instance.

Kamokazi · 05-31-05, 03:25 AM

It's using a Hitachi Microdrive. And it's not the first. There is the Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 with the 4GB also. It's not officially released in the US though. That site converts them from Japanese to English and offers support. If you were to go to Japan, you could get one for about $450 USD. Oh yeah, it uses a Linux kernel for the OS. I forget what the GUI is called though.

05-31-05, 03:39 AM

I've got a 5GB Seagate ST-1 in my X50v. IMO this is much better than a non-removable drive. I still have a SD slot... In addition, Hitachi's gonna send me a 8GB drive once they have an engineering sample. Nothing a Lifedrive can do that a VGA PPC with a large Microdrive can't do better!

jgoodman · 05-31-05, 04:16 AM

Originally Posted by kengsim

Nothing a Lifedrive can do that a VGA PPC with a large Microdrive can't do better!

or a large cf/sd card...

I have 2 gigs of storage on my X50v , 1 gig CF and 1 gig SD....and per megabyte its a heck of a lot cheaper than a "lifedrive"...<<cough>>

<rant>
PS: i noticed on the Palm site it says "the Lifedrive can hold 300 songs, 2 hours of video, 1,000 vacation photos, and more..."

...with 4 gigs?!?! What kind of crapulous codecs are they using??! Ive got four full length feature movies, lots of music videos, fifty ebooks, and a slew of MP3s in my measly 2 gigs of space on my X50v...
</rant>

05-31-05, 04:36 AM

There are some problems with the sharp zarus being translated to english. Read about it in a review by mobilePC magazine.

I doubt sd/cf cards will wane in popularity with the introduction of fixed disks drives. To put this in perspective; the CD-rom drive compliments the hard-disk in a PC, so therefore a sf/cf slot will well together with a fixed dirve in a PPC.

To me, getting a 4gb and above disk drive in a PPC is like expanding the built in storage, it will not replace my use of sd/cf cards. I will still use both.

FreakTrap · 05-31-05, 04:41 AM

Quote:

or a large cf/sd card...

Thats what he meant by microdrive, lol...

But totally agreed, theres nothing special about that unit, other that the 4 gigs are built-in, and that its one of the first [if not the only] units by palm to have the 4 gigs built-in.

axim_wannabe · 05-31-05, 05:08 AM

yeah - BIG storage... 4GB!!! yes!!!

unless you enjoy it being COMPLETELY erased during a hard reset (wherein you can only recover from a backup made in the local desktop)...

btw, everytime you sync to your desktop, would you really love to backup 4GB worth of data???

v3rt1g0 · 05-31-05, 06:18 AM

Originally Posted by axim_wannabe

unless you enjoy it being COMPLETELY erased during a hard reset (wherein you can only recover from a backup made in the local desktop)...

btw, everytime you sync to your desktop, would you really love to backup 4GB worth of data???

That doesn't happen. The drive is not erased after a hard reset.
I know this because I was considering the LifeDrive, but got the x50v instead. The lifedrive is old news in the Palm world ;) It's been known for two weeks. The biggest kicker is that the damn thing doesn't have ANY user accessible RAM.

Also, I suggest you google "Incremental backup", as that is how synchronization works. It's not the full 4GB every time.

irwin2 · 05-31-05, 06:57 AM

Hdd in palm is a very usefull thing ;-)

From bargainpda review "Any form of hard-reset will erase the entire contents of the hard drive, without exception." bye, bye mp3 & movies

"Using the microdrive for music isn't quite flawless. Because of the way the system treats the drive, there's a several second delay for buffering from the time you choose a song, or hit skip, until it starts playing. This this can result in the annoying sensation that the player isn't responding to your input. This isn't the only problem, though. When playing music, the unit seems to suffer from vastly degraded performance. Doing anything, even pulling up the status screen from the system bar, seems to take several times as long as normal, and causes stuttering in the music. " - true multimedia by PalmOne

"This means that whenever you load an application, you're activating the hard drive. Even if the application is on an SD card, the hard drive spins up, though I'm not sure why--perhaps because PalmOS is hardwired to copy an application to program memory, which was originally RAM, before running it. " - save time, memory and battery by palmone

"Likewise, powering down is no longer an instantaneous operation. The period from the time that you hit the switch to the machine actually shutting off is usually 3-4 seconds. It still does instant-on, though."
fast shutting off by palmone

"Sometimes, even bringing the status window from the system bar can take 3 to 4 seconds. If the slightly reduced speed of PalmOne's recent models using flash RAM doesn't work for you, the Lifedrive would probably drive you to apoplexy."

Yes! hdd in Palm OS is a very good idea. ;-)

Gigi · 05-31-05, 07:01 AM

Originally Posted by tallshorty

[Hey mods: not sure where this thread belongs so move it as you please]

Moved to New Products. Actually, there have been other threads on this already. :)

**Frenchy** · 05-31-05, 07:33 AM

One question here, how long does the battery last with an internal drive?

The14given · 05-31-05, 08:06 AM

I heard that it doesn't work fine. Very often freezes the devices etc. Palm is going to die in the next few years - just like Mac did.

psionandy · 05-31-05, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by The14given

Palm is going to die in the next few years - just like Mac did.

Yeah.. that IPOD disaster sunk the company.

Actually the thing about Apple is that they make well designed stuff that 'Just Works'. Thats exactly what Palm should be doing.. but with there nextgen OS issues they have managed to tie both hands behind their back.

A Strong Palm would be good for ALL pda/smartphone users as the competion would make both sides raise their game.

DrMark · 05-31-05, 12:31 PM

Why bother, I bought a 4 gig card to use with my X50. It does dual duty in that when needed I use it in my camera, when not in use, with the PDA. I have other media I use with my camera, but when the big dog is needed there it is.