Hasta La Gadget!

Earlier this year, Seagate promised to flip the 2.5-inch HDD industry upside-down, but it wouldn’t do so by using an SSD in sheep’s clothing. Rather, it’d be doling out a new breed of hard drive, one that actually has a pinch of pure, unadulterated NAND inside for picking up the pace in certain scenarios. The idea of a hybrid hard drive isn’t totally new, but the Momentus XT is one of the first hybrid HDDs to actually make it out of the lab and into the hands of consumers. The most intriguing aspect of the drive is the price — at around $130, it’s just under half as pricey as Seagate’s conventional 500GB Momentus 7200.4. That uptick in price isn’t nothing, but it’s still far less than what you’d pay for a 2.5-inch SSD with half the capacity. We’ve already shown you the benchmarks, so we figured we’d slap this bad boy in our main rig for a few weeks to see if we actually noticed any real-world performance increases to justify the cost. Head on past the break for our two pennies.

Continue reading Seagate Momentus XT hybrid hard drive review

Seagate Momentus XT hybrid hard drive review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When the 2011 Lincoln MKZ goes on sale this fall, the base price will be $35,180, regardless of whether you opt for the gasoline engine or the hybrid version of the midsize Lincoln sedan. With price parity, the take rate for MKZ hybrids should go up, and with quantity, some of the costs of the hybrid components should come down. It may force other automakers to rethink the $2,000-$3,000 premiums that hybrids typically command. But that probably won’t extend to entry-level hybrids in the $20,000 range.

Though they probably won’t look anything like Honda’s adorable EV-N, the Japanese automaker’s got some new technological vehicles up its sleeves — in a speech today, Honda CEO Takanobu Ito formally announced plans to produce a plug-in hybrid competitor for Toyota’s flashy new PHEV Prius by 2012, which rumor has it will sport an estimated fuel economy (when it’s using fuel, we assume) of roughly around 140 miles per gallon. Better still, a completely battery-powered electrical vehicle will also go on sale by 2012, and you won’t have to fly to Japan to try them out, as they’re slated for the States as well. Hydrogen fuel cells are apparently still Honda’s long-term solution, though the FCX Clarity received only a passing mention. In the short term, Honda’s still circling the wagons around part-gasoline systems like the Civic (which will receive a Li-ion battery pack) and the Fit Hybrid, destined for Japan this fall.

Honda will bring plug-in hybrids, full EVs to United States in 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba has announced a hybrid PC that’s not really a notebook but not exactly a tablet either.

Toshiba’s Libretto W100 has two 7-inch multi-touch displays, an Intel Pentium 1.2 GHz processor, a 62 GB solid state drive, a 1-megapixel camera and 2 GB of memory. It runs Windows 7 and weighs about 1.8 lbs — just a tad more than the Apple iPad’s 1.6 lbs.

The device is an “ultra-mobile concept PC,” says Toshiba, though it comes with a price tag of $1,100. That’s a lot of dough to spend for a concept.

Perhaps most interesting: Toshiba is promising to deliver e-reader software that will make the Libretto into an e-book reader, capable of showing full two-page spreads with one page on the left and one on the right — much like those paper books you might still have lying around.

Toshiba’s bet on a hybrid device comes at an unusual time, since the idea has so far failed to catch on with consumers. In March, Entourage released the eDGE, a quirky device with a 10-inch LCD screen on the right and a slightly smaller E Ink display on the left. The $500 machine didn’t bring out the best in either display. Earlier this month, California-based startup Kno promised a dual-screen tablet that would be designed for the optimal textbook reading experience. The Kno tablet is expected to launch later this year.

What the Libretto does have going for it is its extremely compact design and two gorgeous screens (1024 x 600 resolution on each one). The Libretto is among the smallest devices in its category. It measures 4.84 inches by 7.95 inches so you can slip it into a jacket pocket or a small purse.

The multitouch screens can work independently or together, so users can surf the Web on one screen while checking e-mail on the other, or view a web page across both screens. The lower screen can display a virtual keyboard (in any of several different layouts). There’s a single USB port. And the built-in accelerometer means the device automatically switches into portrait or landscape modes when rotated.

The Libretto W100 is expected to ship in August in Japan.

See more photos of the Libretto below:

See Also:

• Toshiba Crams Supercomputer Guts Into 3-D, Web TV
• Review: Entourage eDGe E-Book Reader
• Dual-Screen Tablet Maker Hopes to Reinvent the Textbook

Photos: Toshiba

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Jason, who needs a laptop drive upgrade that doesn’t involve the words “solid state.” Or “really expensive.” If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I am in the market for a 2.5-inch notebook drive for my new Core i7 MacBook Pro. The biggest concern for me is performance, with storage after that, and impact on battery life last. Every SSD I have seen is over my budget. I am wondering which hard drive will be the best non-solid state drive to fit in a MBP. Some people mentioned Seagate’s Momentus XT, which is a hybrid drive — are they any good? Thanks!”

One thing Jason left out was his capacity requirements and actual budget, but we’ll go ahead and assume he wants something larger than 40GB and cheaper than the average SSD. Any blazing HDDs out there for the taking? Go on, it’s not like giving up your secret will make everyone reading this go buy up the remaining inventory. No promises on that, though.

Ask Engadget: best non-SSD laptop hard drive? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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