W e are filing this under "nit-picking," but there are some really large nits involved. NewsFactor has published an otherwise interesting report on some of the micro-drive external hard drives on the market. In that piece, however, NewsFactor tells us: "The new 10 GB iPod sells for $500 and can be used like a Palm or other handheld computer." Oh yeah? We bet there are quite a few iPod owners who might be interested in that. From the article (courtesy of Yahoo!), which we include here for posterityis sake:
And, of course, there is Appleis iPod, which the company considers primarily a music player but that also has myriad other uses. The new 10 GB iPod sells for $500 and can be used like a Palm or other handheld computer. With data transfer speeds of up to 400 megabits per second (Mbps), the iPod is fast enough to transmit live video.
Appleis iPod can not be used like a Palm or any other PDA, though the unit does include the ability to store and display a contact database. The article also completely dismisses FireWire with a bizarre quote from an IDC analyst:
"External storage is definitely going to be a growing market," IDC hardware analyst David Reinsel told NewsFactor. "One of the things that prevented it was a lack of a data port with sufficient bandwidth, and USB 2.0 gives the market a pretty nice range, up to 60 MB a second."
FireWire has been on the market for several years now, with external hard drives being a big part of that market. In addition, while USB 2.0 offers some theoretical throughput in that range (60 MB/second), real-world performance is closer to 12 MB/second. FireWire devices with the Oxford 911 bridge can top out at more than 30 MB/sec.
You can read the full article for yourself at Yahoo!is Web site. The rest of the article includes actually useful information about some other hard drives on the market.