As you may know, Sony have announced two prices for their Playstation 3 console, $829AUD for the 20GB version and $999AUD for the 60GB version.  A lot to pay for a game console, but that’s for another discussion.  What Sony hasn’t been advertising is the other features which the cheaper PS3 will lack over the more expensive variant.  The 20GB version lacks support for Memory sticks, SD and Compact Flash cards, has no built in wi-fi and will have the HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) output removed.  So, what, you ask?  I don’t use memory sticks, I can settle for using a network cable instead of wireless, I don’t need a 60GB hard drive.  But the lack of HDMI support is the real big one which is going to cripple the cheaper system.

HDMI is required to run the PS3 at its highest resolution, 1080p (1920×1080 resolution).  Without an HDMI output, the cheaper PS3 will also be incompatible with the soon to be introduced copy protection system, HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection).  So now, if I want a PS3 I have to pay $999 to get all of the standard features.  Great.  Makes me glad I’m a Nintendo fanboy .

What did I just say? That headline might not have meant much to you, but it’s representative of a step forward in mainstream data storage. Basically, Samsung are releasing a PC with a flash based 32GB Solid State Drive instead of a Hard Disk Drive… Yeh ok that’s pretty much what the headline said. Regardless, SSDs are faster, with a read time of 53MB/s (300% faster than HDD), 28MB/s write time (150% of HDD) and twice the shock resistance of Hard Drives (no moving parts = win). They’re also completely silent, compared to around 30dB produced by an average laptop.

This is the first time this type of data storage has been used in a PC. Read about it here.