Category Archives: Hardware

Category containing all information relating to hardware.

Sony announces 2TB Memory Stick XC

Sony, a worldwide leader in technology (best known for the PlayStation format and common consumer electronics) has announced upcoming production of a 2 terabyte memory stick, dubbed part of the “Memory Stick XC” range.

It will be the same shape and size as the current “Memory Stick Pro” format, so perhaps there may be some backward compatibility meaning that PSP and Sony digital camera users could be in for a big boost on memory. GEEK! can’t find a lot of information regarding backward compatibility but it would be nice (although who would need 2 terabytes of storage on their PSP?).

Not a lot of word on pricing yet but word on the internet is that we might see it available in the next few years.

It looks good – but why would I want a memory stick that has several times the capacity of my hard drive? I mean the idea sounds pretty awesome, but honestly – is there a limit to how much storage we need (or can afford)? My concern would be that Sony might be “biting off a bit more than they can chew”, if you get my drift – I don’t see who is going to want to shed out hundreds (more likely thousands) of pounds on a memory stick.

In the mean time, it looks like Sony is going to concentrate on slowly increasing the capacity of the Memory Stick range. We already have 16GB and 32GB memory sticks, so maybe in the short term we will begin to see 64GB and 128GB. This will mean that Sony can slowly start to reach that maximum capacity of 2TB.

USB 3.0 to be shipping with PCs by end of year!

It’s good to know that USB 3.0 is expected to start arriving on PCs and laptops from the end of this year.

The new Superspeed USB means that transfer speeds will rise from 480mbps to a whopping 5gbps. That means that if you are constantly transferring big files to USB drives, you’re in luck.

It’s being predicted that the new USB format will start shipping towards the end of the year, with it being available in a few high-end PCs. From 2010, it’s expected that about 26 million PCs will ship with USB 3.0. And by 2012, it’s expected that the number of PCs with USB 3.0 will be way over 300 million.

I’m very excited by the news, but it does mean that my laptop and PC will probably need upgrading. I can probably just upgrade the motherboard in the PC, but in the laptop it will be a bit more difficult. In addition, all of my USB 2.0 devices will seem horribly slow after USB 3.0 arrives.

Ah well, no worries for now. But you know, it’s a bit of a pain when you have so many outdated USB devices that transfer really slowly. Never mind.

Freecom Network Drive and 4GB file size limit – a little discovery

I’ve discovered something very pleasing about the Freecom Network Drive today.

I was copying a bunch of files to my Network Drive today, not noticing that in the bunch there was a 6GB file, which in theory should not copy because there is theoretically a 4GB file size limit on the Freecom Network Drive since it is formatted in FAT32.

However, after leaving the computer to copy the files, I came back to check it later that afternoon, and to my amazement the file had copied with no issues. I opened the file from the Network Drive and it worked perfectly.

I was astonished, so I decided to connect the Network Drive up to my computer over USB to see if their had been any disguised file splitting or anything like that. And yes, there was. The file had split into one 4GB file and another 2GB file.

I connected the drive back up over LAN and the file was one 6GB file again.

I am very pleased with this, as it means that the 4GB file size limit is not necessarily true. Freecom doesn’t advertise the fact that the Freecom Network Drive can split files and therefore store files bigger than 4GB, so you might want to bare that in mind if you are considering getting a network drive in the near future.

Samsung introduces a 32GB RAM chip!

Yep, you are reading that correctly. Samsung has managed to squeeze in 32GB memory into one chip.

It’s great news that means that technology is moving on at a really swift pace. The chip is aimed at server use, but it’s still very exciting news.

The 1.35 volt chip also claims to run a bit faster than previous 1.5 volt DDR3 chips. Of course, the chip will definitely not come cheap. There is no price set at the moment since the word at the moment is that Samsung probably won’t have it available to the public anytime this year. There’s also the question of finding a computer that will support that much RAM.

And when you think of it, what the hell are you going to do to fill up 32GB RAM. I have a 2GB RAM laptop here running Vista and that struggles to get past using more than 1.5GB, even when I’m doing intensive work on it such as video editing. You’d have to run hundreds of resource-hogging programs to fill up 32 gigs! Even a server would struggle to gobble up 32GB of RAM – you’d have to have excessive load on it to choke on RAM that big. On the other hand, it hopefully will bring more reliability to shared servers meaning less downtimes and more power availability.

But anyway, it’s nice to hear that RAM technology is progressing.

New Nokia N86 ships worldwide, looks exciting!

The new Nokia N86 has started shipping worldwide, and it looks very exciting!

nokia-n86-0

I think it looks pretty nice, although the angled button towards the bottom right of the top layer looks a little weird on the phone. The number keypad has good size, well spread out keys which should be easy to use, and the large screen should make it great to use.

In terms of technical specs, it has a 2.6″ OLED screen, a quad band antenna, bluetooth, 8MP camera with flash, HSPDA, Wi-Fi, Music Player and GPS – so it is well equiped for most phone users.

It isn’t cheap, with SIM free prices starting from £549.99, but you can get it FREE on a £30 contract with Vodafone.

I don’t think I’d pay the money for it as it is very expensive SIM free, but it is well equiped and is very practical.