Reg Kit Watch

PDA

This new version of the existing Tungsten T doubles the memory to 32MB (29.5MB of which are available to the user), adds a superior 320 x 320 transflective colour screen, and upgrades the on-board system software to Palm OS 5.2.1.

The T2 also drops the original's gunmetal colour scheme in favour of a lighter, more silvery look. The metal casing is retained, as is the 144MHz OMAP 1510 processor and built-in Bluetooth support.

Palm has extended the PDA's software bundle to include RealOne Player for MP3 playback, and Kinoma Player, which allows users to watch movies on their handhelds. Palm also bundles Kinoma Producer, which converts QuickTime, MPEG and Windows Media movies into its highly-compressed internal format. Palm Photos, a much-improved version of the Tungsten T's original PhotoBase, is bundled too.

Palm is also including the latest version of its VersaMail email package, 2.5, and its updated Web Browser Pro app. DataViz' Documents To Go is included to provided Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatibility (though the PowerPoint support isn't provided to Mac users for some reason).

US pricing for the T2 is $399; it's £329 including sales tax in the UK.

Hard Drive

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has launched the Travelstar E7K60 - a 60GB "mobile-class" 7200rpm unit aimed at 'always on' roles, such as low-end servers, in particular blade systems.

The E7K60 is supplied in a 2.5in form-factor unit that's 9.5mm high and weighs 115g. It can withstand 1000Gs of non-operating shock and 200Gs of operating shock.

The drive contains two platters each with two GMR write heads. It has a 4.2ms average latency and an average seek time of 10ms. It has an "aggressive" read/write duty cycle of up to 50 per cent - more than twice the usage cycle of standard mobile drives, Hitachi claims. It connects to the host across a 100MBps parallel ATA bus.

The unit's suitability for server roles, says Hitachi, is its low power consumption, small form factor and said read/write duty cycle stats, all developed for mobile applications, but equally valuable in ultra-dense servers. ®