Samsung Does Portable Solid State

I'm usually looking at Samsung's office-related infrastructure like its new multi-function printer the SCX-5530FN (does laser, duplex copying, color scanning and faxing). But that's one big company with loads of products--some of them on the bloodier side of the edge.

One such is it's newly announced Q30 notebook, which is going to be the world's first production all-solid state notebook. That means no hard disk, just loads of SSD memory.

Aside from a meatier price, what's that get you? Way faster performance because your hard disk is now essentially running at RAM speeds. Think around 150%-300% faster than hard disk-based boxes, though we'll need to wait until they get a Q30 into the US for some actual performance tests before we know for sure.

And all that speed is also going to come in smaller packages since SSD storage doesn't take nearly the room or power that a hard disk does. The new Q30, for instance, is going to come in an ultra-portable 12.1-inch screen form factor. Small size is also going to be on the storage side. No official word yet on how much SSD space you'll get on a Q30, but if it's more than 35GB, I'll be surprised. Still, for an ultraportable, that should be enough, no?

Especially since that ultraportable isnt' going to have that much brain power since, Samsung also seems to have teamed it with an Intel embedded video chip and a mobile 1.2GHz Celeron processor. Let's hope they come out with a more cerebral version soon. Meantime, it's an interesting item to watch, but I don't think I'd go buying the sales deptartment a new fleet any time soon.

(via UberGizmo)

Posted by Oliver Rist on October 10, 2006 12:12 PM