Mobilised

The Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drives come in three sizes, 160GB / 250GB / 320GB, but like the Tardis they are big on the inside while maintaining diminutive dimensions on the exterior.

The drives are a tiny 2.5inch long. The casings are in a sleek, glossy finish with a contemporary design.

New owners will get a copy of  NTI Shadow automated backup software which Toshiba says will make sure even “digital novices” can properly backup their beloved data.

Better yet, they are fully mobile – powered through the USB port rather than a power cable – and include an internal shock sensor and ramp loading technology to keep drives and data safe while on the move.

Features:

• USB bus-powered for easy plug and play operation
• Small footprint for space saving and easy portability
• Easy to use Windows and Mac software
• Preloaded NTI Shadow software provides an easy to use interface to make backups effortless
• Backups start automatically and run in the background
• Data is stored in the original file format; no special software is required to open the files on another computer

Specifications:

• Capacity: 160GB / 250GB / 320GB
• Interface: USB 2.0
• Speed: Up to 480Mb/s
• Dimensions and weight: 81 x 127 x 17mm (WxDxH); 198.4g
• System requirements: Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista for PC; Mac OS X 10.3.9 or – - later with an available USB 2.0 port
• In the box: One Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive with NTI Shadow^TMpreloaded, USB 2.0 Cable and Quick Install Guide
• Three year limited warranty

NTI Shadow Software Features:
Award-winning NTI Shadow software is an automatic back-up solution that runs in the background, automatically capturing updates to files and saving them to the external drive. It allows the user to choose continuous or specific days, times and frequencies for back-up operation in the set-up process. NTI Shadow software features include:

• Backup Automatically Starts (Scheduled Minutes, Hours, Days)
• Continuous Data Protection
• Detect Hard Drive and Start Backup
• Data can be read by any computer (Native File Format)
• Easily Edit All Job Options
• File Version Control
• Drag and Drop Restoration
• Smart USB Device Detection (auto start on detection)
• Multiple and Concurrent Backup Jobs
• Filter by File Type

Pricing:

• 160GB RRP Inc. A$149
• 250GB RRP Inc. A$199
• 320GB RRP Inc. A$249

Location information can be automatically attached to photos and videos and easily uploaded to web and personal blogs, viewed on a television screen or simply shared from phone to phone.

The camera is equipped with Xenon flash, red eye reduction, autofocus and Carl Zeiss optics, but it all doesn’t come too cheap with a price tag of $689 for the Nokia 6220 classic in Australia. This puts the phone clearly in the mid-range for a candy bar.

The full camera UI enables the user to easily manage the flash options, change between single shot and sequence mode, set the self-timer and adjust the color tones. While viewing pictures is enjoyable from its crystal clear and large 2.2 inch QVGA display, sharing snapshots with friends and family is fast with high-speed HSDPA connection and convenient using media sharing sites online like Share on Ovi and Flickr that are just one click away.

Short of tru ebusiness smart phone functionality you are getting most of what a consumer is looking for. There’s an internet browser, email, music player, FM radio – even a dictionary. The phone supports up to 8GB of memory. The Nokia 6620 comes with a 1 GB microSD memory card in box.

The integrated A-GPS is teamed up with Nokia Maps 2.0 so you won’t get lost and the phone can navigate you to interesting sights and points of interest which you can take photos of to your friends. At least for the first 3 months. The Nokia 6220 classic comes with preloaded local maps on a microSD memory card. New owners get a premium navigation license, free for 3 months and then have purchase offers visual turn-by-turn pedestrian guidance and voice guidance for drive.

Additional maps of more than 200 countries can be downloaded from nokia and city guides with tips, information, videos and audio streams are available as well.

“The Nokia 6220 classic is really ahead of its time with its robust imaging and sharing feature set optimised for the needs of consumers who appreciate ease of use and new innovations,” said Kirk Symons, National Sales Manager for Nokia Australia.

“This advanced device is changing the way people communicate, access and co-create information. Consumers no longer need several devices to create, manage and share their favorite content. The Nokia 6220 classic is a credible alternative to single-purpose digital cameras and standalone navigation devices.”

Introduced at CeBit in Hanover, Germany, the T303 looks like it’s clearly targeted at the style-conscious consumer who needs to check their make-up in the phones chrome-finished mirror display. The company says it’s not just about style, it’s also “substance” thanks to a host of features. Well don’t expect too many features from this phone. It does do the basics though. You’ll find the T303 won’t overload you with features. It has only a 1.3 megapixel camera, no flash or light and only a 4x digital zoom.

It does have a media player and FM radio, but while it supports Bluetooth, there’s no mention of stereo Bluetooth support in the company’s announcement, so we can only assume that it’s not there. This is a basic GSM phone with all the effort put into making a compact design, with nice build materials and we are guessing a very reasonable price. Sony Ericsson hasn’t priced the handset as yet and it won’t be available until mid-year even in the “selected markets” planned for its initial launch, but this phone has all the hallmarks of wide consumer appeal.

“The balance between shape and size in combination with the design makes it a truly eye-catching product. Our aim was to create a phone that would function equally as a daily companion as well as something to show off on a night out,” said Lykke Tærsbøl, Senior Designer at the Sony Ericsson Creative Design Centre. In the press statement he also added the company combines “premium finish and materials with a good feature-set”. “Good in a press release means you get the basics and nothing more.

There’s no GPS or location services, no video support or on phone editing, no WiFi, only GPRS data transport and apparently no support for instant messaging, Facebook or whatever else is the latest must have. The phone does support Java and has USB connections, but mostly it’s about looking good and leaving room in your handbag for the money you saved on a more expensive phone.

SSD hard drives are still generally only found at the premium end of the market and even then they are usually an option rather than standard feature, but as the capacity of these drives increases and the cost comes down we can expect to see them in more and more devices where weight, power consumption and reliability are more important than raw storage capacity.

At US$2,799 (A$3,999) the X300 notebook is unashamedly designed for the most well-heeled and demanding road warriors, ultra-thin, ultraportable and with an ultralong battery life Lenovo has designed this for maximum mobility and performance. You should get ten hours work from this laptop, enough for a long international flights or a full working day away from the office.

The X300 uses 25 per cent less power than previous ultraportables from Lenovo, but the company hasn’t skimped on features. There’s an optional, but built-in 7-millimeter slim DVD burner, stereo speakers, a digital microphone and an integrated camera for video conferencing. Unfortunately, you’ll have toundock the DVD burner if you want the ten hour battery life as it takes up the same bay as the extended life battery.

Still, the ThinkPad X300 is the thinnest and lightest ThinkPad ever and Lenovo has managed this by building it out of the same materials used to build airplanes and Formula One cars.ThinkPads are  pretty tough generally, but the X300 not only has an internal “roll cage” its casing is made out of carbon fibre.

The notebook has a 13.3-inch LED backlit WXGA+ high resolution display which is not only energy efficient it’s actually brighter than you would get from a traditional fluorescent backlight. Some people will get 4G connectivity with the models designed for WiMax or even the built in GPS functionality, while others will be content with ultra-wideband/wireless USB, GB Ethernet and 802.11a/g/n.
Australian models will be equipped with 3G HSDPA for use on the Vodafone network.

The first processor on offer is from the same family as the recent Apple MacBook Air. It’s one of Intel’s small form factor, low voltage 65nm Merom processors with a clock speed of 1.2GHz just a shade slower than the MacBook, but more energy efficient at almost half the wattage.

It may be thin, but Lenovo hasn’t strayed from the ThinkPad’s business-like design and likewise you can expect all the standard ThinkPad enterprise class everything on the X300. The notebook offers a layered security approach to help protect data and unauthorized access, so standard equipment includes integrated fingerprint reader, I/O port disablement and 32-byte password protection.