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Datels 4GB Hard Drive for PSP Reviewed

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."

16 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Whats the point? by Hellad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

    1. Re:Whats the point? by richy+freeway · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It doubles up as a larger battery as well.

  2. Great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Dear name-caller,

      I value portability. I trust that Sony will allow its Universal Media Disc format to be used in all order of players within the next few years.

      Sincerely,
      Josiah

  3. Can't put it in your pocket by blackmonday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  4. Sounds good to me... by B11 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    4 gigs of pr0n to go? Sound like a winner to me.

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  5. Nicer is Relative by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

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    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
    1. Re:Nicer is Relative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      $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?

  6. i'll be a proud owner.. by torpor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    .. 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 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 terrible things to chuck around, and well .. no game machine worth its salt doesn't get chucked around, or at least thats the way i see game machines. i'd be happier if i could use SD in the PSP, natively, without requiring 3rd-party accessorization, anyway ..

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  7. Re:Whats the point (of posting w/o RTFA)? by ReverendLoki · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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 the size of the thing... I mean, it fits the lines of the device fine so it doesn't look out of place, and supposedly it doesn't weigh that much, according to their stats, but damn that's huge for a handheld device. Certainly doesn't really qualify as a pocket device with those attachements.

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  8. On eBay... by Darius+Jedburgh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...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.

  9. It is a ripoff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!!

  10. Re:Whats the point (of posting w/o RTFA)? by ReverendLoki · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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 updated the psoting of their results within the first 24 hours, and planned to update it further later on. That's all.

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  11. Re:Hm.... by Koil · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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 those.

    Anyway, this addition is for the people who are looking for more space and allow there PSP to be all things to them, except and interactive PDA, I'll give you that. But for people that can watch there movies, assorted videos, play the homebrew apps, play the games released for it, listen to their MP3's, look at their pics, etc....I'd say that the PSP still has a pretty damn good bit going for it.

    Myself personally, I think carrying around a HD attached to the PSP does take away from the last P in the name, but to some...its not an issue.

    Its quite annoying to hear the fanbois from the Nintendo side, or whatever that GP32 (or a GP2X) system is, call us fanboi's, when thats JUST what you're doing yourselves. If thats what you want, fine...honky dorey, but don't knock the PSP because your tastes are different.

    The homebrew scene for PSP is doing quite well if you ask me. Its evolving, and will still take a bit longer before I think its as easy as it needs to be for the masses to come to it, but I think it will.

    *I* am waiting for them to find some adapter that isn't clunky and awkward as hell that will let me use other FLASH media, instead of having to pay Sony's insane prices for their's.

  12. Serious Storage by MrSteveSD · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:Bad idea by snuf23 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

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    Sometimes my arms bend back.