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Handhelds Hardware

Datels 4GB Hard Drive for PSP Reviewed 146

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the no-such-thing-as-too-much-storage dept.
PSP News writes "The announcement that Datel was producing a 4GB Hard Drive addon was just the thing the PSP Community was looking for and today Lik Sang has done a great hands on review of the product that provides more details and a much nicer price of $199 instead of the rather high $249 which was originally posted."
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Datels 4GB Hard Drive for PSP Reviewed More

Datels 4GB Hard Drive for PSP Reviewed

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  • Whats the point? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Hellad ( 691810 ) on Monday October 17, 2005 @04:58PM (#13812034)
    With sony's efforts to kill the homebrew market, whats the point? For music? iPod. I guess for video, but a giant harddrive like that seems to be a detriment rather than an addition...
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • It doubles up as a larger battery as well.
      • FYI, as the article states, this drive ships with a X2 battery with it. They even tested battery length, comparing a standard battery w/ a 1 GB memory stick against the x2 battery and 4 GB HDD. Direct quote:
        • Playing movie with Standard Battery and SanDisk 1G Memory Stick: 4.45 Hours.
        • Playing movie with Datel X2 Battery and Datel 4GB Hard Drive: *Still Testing* (Updated within 24h)

        Looks to me like the new setup is/was able to run for around 24 hours under the new setup. I'm not surprised, given th

        • It's not 24 hours, it's that they are still testing and will update the site within 24 hours. :)
        • Where'd you get the impression that it'll run for around 24 hours? The PSP they're testing hasn't died yet, but when it does, the comparison will be updated within 24 hours of it being posted.
          • I got the impression based upon the fact that they used the past tense (updated) as opposed to a future tense (will update). I know these guys are in Hong Kong, and English is a pain in the ass, even for native speakers (just peruse these forums for further proof), but their grasp of the language was impressive enough based upon the rest of the article, that I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

            Now if I'm wrong, so be it. However, based upon the language used, I assumed that they had already

    • Sony won't kill the Homebrew market. After all, these were the same geniuses that came up with copy protection that was defeated by a magic marker.

    • Bad idea (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Work Account ( 900793 )
      If you're going to use a battery-slurping technology like hard disk with all those moving parts, you should at least offer more than what modern RAM technology can store (i.e. the 1,2,4 GB range) on the disc since it wouldn't require any more size or power resources to go from 4GB HDD to 10 or 20GB.

      You'd get a lot more for your money and could actually store all your portable data, such as a decent song collection in mp3/ogg/wma as well as some videos of TV shows perhaps and some photos.

      • Re:Bad idea (Score:3, Informative)

        by ForestGrump ( 644805 )
        If you RTFA...eh I'll just give you the gist.

        They went out and tried a larger drive (6 gig I beleive).

        Long story short, the PSP firmware didn't like the 6 gigger and refused to use it.

        Grump

      • Re:Bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)

        by snuf23 ( 182335 )
        These aren't laptop style hard drives, they are Compact Flash micro drives which are much smaller and use less battery juice. The largest capacity I can seem to find is 6GB, or 8GB flash modules. The 8GB flash cards cost over $700.
        And as the other poster mentioned, the current PSP firmware won't work with drives over 4GB in size.

    • Re:Whats the point? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      are you nuts? the psp would be the killer portable video platform, and it falls on it's face because they did not put a HDD in it to begin with.

      If the PSP was a game,video, pocket tivo playback, mp3 player all in one with a nice big vivid screen it would start to take a helluva bite out of the ipod market share.

      it had the potential, but as usual, sony stopped short.

    • Re:Whats the point? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot.worf@net> on Monday October 17, 2005 @05:25PM (#13812261)
      Well, for those who have legally dumped their games onto memory sticks and played them, the speed increase is *wonderful*. A lot of games have very low load times now (and it seems a few have hard coded delays since they show the developer/publisher/etc splash screens with no UMD/memory stick activity.

      UMD is slow. Pathetically slow. (Slow enough that the UMDs often have dummy data near the beginning to shove the real data to the end of the UMD, where it can be read much faster, as well as possibly to make it easier to seek around). It's also nice that I can store my games in two 512MB memory sticks (plus have space for a few homebrew emulators). Much smaller than carrying a few UMDs and cases. This will be good for those with larger collections to carry around.

      Plus there are a few that use it as their iPod Video... holds a few more movies. Or a few more MP3s.

  • PSP (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mr. Vandemar ( 797798 ) on Monday October 17, 2005 @05:00PM (#13812060) Homepage
    Portable Secret Porn! This will probably create some awkward public transportation encounters for me...

  • Great. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17, 2005 @05:01PM (#13812071)
    So, it's only $450 to get a PSP+4GB hard drive. Um.. great.

    How long until we can just give up on and start addressing it as what it is: a high-end PDA with high-end PDA prices and, coincidentally, a D-Pad?

    In the meantime, just for the record, if you go out and buy a 30GB Video iPod plus a Nintendo DS, your grand total will be $420. Just saying.

    • Re:Great. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Thud457 ( 234763 )
      "In the meantime, just for the record, if you go out and buy a 30GB Video iPod plus a Nintendo DS, your grand total will be $ 420 . Just saying."

      So it also serves as bong?

    • "In the meantime, just for the record, if you go out and buy a 30GB Video iPod plus a Nintendo DS, your grand total will be $420."

      If you are suggesting that the video on an iPod comes anywhere near the video on a PSP, I would like to meet you under the bleachers after homeroom. I'll grant that gaming is subjective and the DS vs. PSP debate is legit and ongoing - but nothing handheld, be it game machine, PDA, iPod or whatever, comes close to the video on a PSP.

      • I have to second that. When I first got my PSP and popped in the free movie trailer disk that came with it I was in shock at how friggin great the picture was. Showed it to my friends and they were all amazed as well.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Who said anything about a $20 DVD (I'm assuming you mean UMD)? I have yet to buy (and probably won't ever) a UMD movie for the PSP. The UMD I was talking about was the FREE one that came with the unit.

            If anything it shows me the quality of the screen and how great my ripped movies from my DVD collection are going to look on it (which so far I've got Office Space on my 1 GB memory stick and as I expected it looks AWESOME).
            • Do you use linux?
              What do you use to recode a DVD to the PSP?
              What settings did you use (fps, bandwidth, others) (for Office Space)?
              What's the size of the movie?
      • but nothing handheld, be it game machine, PDA, iPod or whatever, comes close to the video on a PSP.

        Ehhh.... [newegg.com] maybe you mean no kitchen-sink handhelds...
    • You can get handheld movie players for a lot less than that too, if that's what you want to do.

      Saw one this afternoon with a beautiful screen about 50% larger than the PSP... no idea what the battery life is though.
      • Saw one this afternoon with a beautiful screen about 50% larger than the PSP

        What resolution do you think that larger screen might have? It is probably engineered for low price and NTSC resolution which is about 320x240. Compare that with the 480x272 for the PSP screen. It would be cool (and maybe not so inexpensive) if someone made a 7" portable DVD player that took full advantage of the 720x480 resolution of the DVD format like a laptop computer can.
    • "How long until we can just give up on and start addressing it as what it is: a high-end PDA with high-end PDA prices and, coincidentally, a D-Pad?"

      The main difference being that the PSP doesn't have a touchscreen, thereby severely limiting its use as a PDA. I'd consider the PSP to be more along the lines of a luxury handheld gaming machine, something like what the XB360 will be to the Nintendo Revolution... though I still consider the DS to be the much better buy, and I'll likely recommend the Revolution o

    • And it runs linux! (both :p)
    • And they run linux!
  • Why not use RAM technology in a light compact portable stick?
    • Because a 4GB flash memory stick would cost a little/a lot more.
      • A SanDisk 4GB Memory Stick Pro Edition is $243 [google.com] on the consumer market, meaning its cost in a business to business transaction for such purposes could be as low as $100 or $150, and they could still mark it up $50 to $100.

        All that, plus lighter and much longer battery life considering reading/writing to RAM is so inexpensive from a power standpoint versus doing the same to hard disk with all those moving parts.
    • Because Sony's 4GB memory stick costs a hair shy of $600.
    • Im sorry but the simple question I am asking is: How come they didn't just put a compact flash slot in to begin with instead of force feeding everyone the Memory Stick®.

      I concede that this is what 90% of the posts on this thread will be. At least I am relatively early!

      • Because a compact flash card (even non micro drives) are on the scale of 10 times larger than memory stick duo?

        Incidently they do not have 10 times the capacity nor 1/10th the price.

        Of the devices I own which use memory the majority (PDA, mobile phone and PSP) use memory stick. (The PDA uses non-duo sticks as well.) My cameras take SD and compact flash. So I have to own a bunch of formats anyways.
    • Remember than hard disk magnetic media operating life is usually much greater than FLASH/EEPROM technologies.
    • RAM technology sucks down power like like a coke whore on vacation in Columbia
        FLASH technology may or may not be a great idea either because of its relatively limited (compared to a HD) # of read/write cycles
      • FLASH technology may or may not be a great idea either because of its relatively limited (compared to a HD) # of read/write cycles

        I test flash all the time and have several tests running right now. I have some tests that will kill a hard drive, many times within 24 hours, but flash shrug off. The major weak spot of hard drives is the mechanical operation.

        With the current write endurance and wear-leveling capabilities of flash and flash controllers, I would easily expect flash to outlast hard drives becaus

  • Can't put it in your pocket (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) on Monday October 17, 2005 @05:09PM (#13812137) Homepage
    The pics show a much bulkier PSP. It's almost impossible to pocket a PSP now, forget about it with this add-on. The article has some interesting points, 4 GB is the largest capacity supported by the PSP's OS, and inside the gadget is a run of the mill 4GB microdrive that can be swapped with Compact Flash cards (better battery power?). They didn't reveal the battery impact of this gadget, its still in "testing" phase.

    • Anyone know how large the PSP movies are?
      or is that an irrelevant question b/c you can't get 'em off the cartridge
    • I believe the neoflash team(a group working on PSP memory adaptors) was able to add up to 36gb on the PSP and have recognized, and haven't tested higher simply because their hardware can't do anything higher. By the way an average PSP game is ~600mb, a movie ripped off UMD is 1.8gb exactly, and a good-quality feature length movie for 2.0(H.264) is about 600mb while for 1.5(MPEG4 Simple) it's about 800mb.
      • Sorry that I wasn't clear on this before; the 4GB is a FAT16 limitation not a PSP limitation; if the stick is formatted differently the data is readable from the PC(and yes USB data reading does go through the firmware; some USB bus drivers are loaded). So the problem is NOT the PSP's firmware as in block count/blocksize but rather the filesystem supported.
    • I used to have a Palm Tungsten E, and a Samsung cel phone - both used to fit in my pocket, and both got washed by my wife.

      My new Audiovox PDA/phone combo and PSP are too large to fit in my pocket, and I consider that a good thing.

  • Sounds good to me... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by B11 ( 894359 )
    4 gigs of pr0n to go? Sound like a winner to me.

  • Nicer is Relative (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Monday October 17, 2005 @05:13PM (#13812162)
    a much nicer price of $199 instead of the rather high $249 which was originally

    $50/GB ($49.75+tax/GB for the purists) leaves me believing that you and I have a different definition of nicer.

    • Re:Nicer is Relative (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      $50/GB ($49.75+tax/GB for the purists) leaves me believing that you and I have a different definition of nicer.

      Ahh, so according to your definition, paying $50/20% less than what was originally thought is not nicer?
    • It is a better price than originally solicited. Even with the older price, it would still beat the cost of 4 x 1GB MS Pro Duo cards and beat the inconvenience of swapping them out, and the new price is better yet.
    • You must be the type that thinks attaching a 200GB Hard Drive to a portable device is a Good Idea [slashdot.org].
      In the real world however, $50/GB is not unreasonable in this market since Memory Sticks are ~$100/GB.
    • a much nicer price of $199 instead of the rather high $249 which was originally

      $50/GB ($49.75+tax/GB for the purists) leaves me believing that you and I have a different definition of nicer.
      $50/GB is a whole lot better than $90/GB (or higher) for MS Dou Pro.
      Not to mention the extended battery life that comes included.

      I'm gonna get one.

  • Combine this with the TV adapter! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17, 2005 @05:13PM (#13812168)
    And this on the heels of the announcement of the TV adapter! [slashdot.org]
     
    So combine the hard drive [lik-sang.com] plus the TV adapter [lik-sang.com], and your PSP can now serve as a ... comfortable home for a family of four?

  • i'll be a proud owner.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by torpor ( 458 )
    .. not of PSP, but of GP32X of course [since its an extremely inexpensive open gaming system, ripe for hobby, potent new-market development], and i'll be bunging one of these babies in it [pretec.com] which, fortunately for me, are not quite as expensive as the press releases parrot, at least not in decent bulk orders .. a condition undoubtedly set to diminish, as the market floods with bigger and bigger SD cards.

    so, i think its a bit passé to be cheery about this hard drive business on PSP. hard drives are terri
    • Same here. I can't wait for the GP2X to come out and shut these PSP homebrew peeps up for good. PSP's homebrew "scene" was about as exciting as a dead Korean whore compared to Gamepark32's, and the GP2X is only gonna overshadow them both.
      • I believe use of the term 'peeps' in conversation eliminates your comments from serious consideration. Really. Nevertheless :

        Gamepark32? Is that the sequel to larry Niven and Steve Barnes wonderful Dreakpark serious? A handheld gaming device you say? I love games. Where can I go to pick up this amazing device, plus a few games? I didn't see it at Futureshop, Bestbuy, EBGames, Blockbuster or Walmart. Sounds like its successor is just poised to destroy the PSP, though, so I will put my PSP in the garbage righ
        • I didn't see it at Futureshop, Bestbuy, EBGames, Blockbuster or Walmart.

          Your slavish devotion to the confines of your consumer/producer-cult box preclude the rest of your comment from serious consideration.

          Its the 21st Century, man. Think Global. It no longer matters what you buy at your corner store.

          The GP32X can be had cheap from a very large number of places. Sure, it may not be 'selling in the millions', but rarely have big things ever achieved their large vista without humble and unique steps.

          You ca
          • Hah.

            Say what you will about my slavish devotion - I have a pretty good idea what makes a game platform succeed, and I don't think you have described it.

            We will see if your utopian ideal repaces my pragmatic outlook. I wish you luck. I would like things to play out the way you say, but I suspect i will be right anyway.

  • On eBay... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Darius Jedburgh ( 920018 )
    ...you can buy a used laptop with better graphics and much more storage for less money than a PSP+4Gb HDD. Sure, an old laptop might not be something cool to show off to your friends, but you can run games on a laptop. Come to think of it, I think you could get a new laptop for that price.

    • Re:On eBay... (Score:2, Informative)

      by AndreiK ( 908718 )
      Already have. 40GB Hard drive laptop, good power output, and a much bigger screen was under 200 dollars.

      I really can't see the appeal of a PSP.
      • I never thought I'd buy one, but then my wife surprised me with one for my birthday. I love it! I justify it because it basically replaced my Sharp Zaurus SL-5600 (I even sold it on Ebay). Truth is I only used my Zaurus to play games, surf the web and watch movies on the go. Never really used it as a PDA. So all of the sudden I have a PSP that does all of that and way better in an almost as compact form factor (yes it fits in my pocket).

        Long story short, I think the answer to "can't see the appeal of
        • Every device has its niche. Some people have big pockets, some people have small pockets, some people like to carry a backpack with them at all times. Right now I'm finding that the GBA Micro is exactly what a want and a friend who just bought a PSP and a Micro has practically dumped the PSP in favor of the Micro (a Micro, not the much more powerful DS!). It's more compatible with life at work as an adult where carrying a PSP around all day might not look too good. But I've no doubt that there are people fo
      • I can't play Metal Gear Acid or Lumines or Coded Arms, etc on a Laptop.
    • Yeah, but I can't easily play games on an old laptop on the fly.

      I can just pull my psp out of my backpack, turn it on, and go...

  • It is a ripoff (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17, 2005 @05:40PM (#13812370)
    The 4GB drive inside is not a Hitachi or Toshiba, but a Magicstor microdrive, which is much ceaper. On February I purchased two Magicstor 4 GB microdrives for $79.95 a piece. How do the justify the $120 difference?. A box and a board are worth $120?. They wanted to charge even more, $249, that is $170 for the board and the box!!
  • Let's not kid ourselves. This is not about putting 4GB of video on the PSP, it's about 4GB of GAMES on the PSP. Right now there is a pent up demand for a larger storage device on the PSP. Many people who became aware of the cracked status of the PSP ran out and bought a 1GB memory stick. This allowed them to play about 95% of the games released so far. (A small minority are larger than 1GB in size without ripping content from the game). Several people, however balked at the high price of a 2GB memory stick.

  • Datel broke MagicGate. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Col. Bloodnok ( 825749 ) on Monday October 17, 2005 @06:09PM (#13812583)
    They must be using their GateCrasher chip to pull this off, since it has a memory stick interface.

    I have a lot of respect for that firm. Standing up to Sony and creating some really cool products for their closed platform - the hard way.
  • Interesting choice now. I sold my old iPod, and with the money I now have, I was planning on getting a new iPod with video.

    The question now is, which is better:

    1 iPod Nano so I can listen to all of the songs on my iTunes/Podcasts/Audiobooks, and have the 4 GB PSP add-on to my current PSP so I can have space for multiple reencoded movies to the 4 GB HDD for when I travel

    OR

    1 iPod with video at 60 GB space, and leave my PSP as it is with a 512 MB card for my homebrew (ah, the joys of never upgrading past 1.50
    • (ah, the joys of never upgrading past 1.50 so I can use my NES/SNES/Genesis/Game Boy emulators as long as I want)

      Try playing them on a GP32 (or a GP2X). It has a standard screen so your emus don't have black bars on the sides nor look shitty when stretched to widescreen (you have to choose between those two when playing on a PSP).

      Seriously, these PSP homebrew kiddies must not know what a real homebrew scene is...

      • Re:Hm.... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Koil ( 786141 )
        I have had my PSP since near launch (1.5) and have just recently gotten into putting the Emu's on my PSP and I absolutely love it. I only have a 32Mb card that came with it, so this allows me Tetris, Doom, and my SNES Emu with MKII, MKIII, and Killer Instinct (man, I forgot how much I loved that game). I don't have any black bars or stretched screens when I use my NES/SNES emulators and I have run quite a few games through them. This may be the case when using the GameBoy emu's, as I haven't used any of tho
        • I also forgot to mention that you can surf the web, play interactively with other PS owners and use it as a handy dandy remote control!
        • No kidding - right now, the best portable games being released are on the DS, but I love my PSP in spite of Sony it seems.

          A friend of mine got a 1 GB stick for $80 bucks online - I'll have to see where he found his at. There are some third party folks doing it, through - just have to look.
      • With only 4 buttons total, I'm sure looking forward to playing 8 button SNES games on a GP32! And with its incredible 8MB RAM, I'm sure those 16MB GBA games will play quite well. /sarcasm

  • an Atari Lynx? ;) (model 2)
    man, i loved that console. res looks really bad though when you try it now.
    but neither go in your pocket without you looking like you're *very* pleased to see *everyone* 'nuff said.
  • http://www.psp-hacks.com/2005/10/10/4gb-hard-drive -for-the-sony-psp/ [psp-hacks.com] wrote about this too. I'm excited!
  • Has anyone ever thought that we may have just got the pocket wrong?
  • this thing makes the psp look like crap.. on top of that, it makes it heavier. psp is way too sexy for this bulky addition.. especially at $199.. no thanks!
  • oh great, i want to big ugly things sticking out of a PSP

  • Serious Storage (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MrSteveSD ( 801820 )
    If you want some serious storage and it's really video you're interested in, the Archos Av500 is a much better idea. The Archos Screen is only a little bit smaller (4 vs 4.2 inches) but the 30GB storage makes up for it. It can also record TV directly and supports more video formats than the PSP.
  • I'd rather own four 1 GB memory sticks that I can easily store in a tiny pouch than that hard drive contraption that straps onto the PSP making it slightly bulky, clunky and ugly. Though the sum of the memory sticks would cost more, they should be faster in read/write times anyhow which is a big plus for some.

  • Case? (Score:1)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) *
    The PSP needs a case and this product means it doesn't fit in any of the standard ones. Has Datel released a case to suit?
  • A completely reasonable, utterly sensible $799.99 instead of the unbelievable, irrationably overpriced $800.00.
  • Ok, I love the PSP and all... But we're getting into some pretty rare pricing air here. You just paid $250 for a PSP. another $50 for a game. Maybe $50 to $100 on a decent memory stick. I know! Lets crop another duce and spend $200 for a micro HDD. That's a minimum of nearly $600 we're now investing on a handheld gaming system, assuming you don't buy any other games.

    Now I have to point out that the incremental approach that Sony seems to be engaging in is not a bad strategy-- Buy only what you want or can a

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