FireLite XPress Portable HD With Always-On Display

Andrew Liszewski Avatar

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SmartDisk FireLite XPress Portable Hard Drive (Image courtesy SmartDisk)By Andrew Liszewski

From SmartDisk comes an extension to their FireLite line of portable hard drives with the FireLite XPress. What sets this version apart is the use of a cholesteric liquid crystal screen (like e-ink technology but with a much slower refresh rate) that allows it to display information about the drive even when the unit is not powered on or connected to a computer.

With the included software the user can adjust what information is shown on the screen and how it is displayed. For example with a 6-point font size the 240 x 160 pixel screen will display 12 lines of text. Displayed information can include the user-designated drive name, the last date data was transferred to the drive and even a list of the drive contents. (Though unless the display can be scrolled a table of contents for a 60GB drive will probably not fit on a 12 line display.)

The FireLite XPress drives with the always-on display should be available in June and will retail at $199.99 for the 60GB model and $299.99 for the 120GB model.

[SmartDisk FireLite XPress Portable HD] VIA [Rob Galbraith DPI]

Andrew Liszewski Avatar

3 responses to “Post Title”

  1. SmartDisk announces FireLite XPress drive with always-on screen…

    We’ve seen a number of LCD screens on flash drives
    before, but displays on portable hard drives are relatively few and far
    between (if there is one, it’s probably more of a PMP than a hard
    drive). Well, SmartDisk
    is attemping to stand out from th…

  2. Dr. Tod Schneider Avatar

    The ChLCD module used in this product is passively addressed -it is not an active matrix display. In a direct drive or active matrix drive scheme, ChLCD’s refresh faster than electrophoretic (Eink) technology. (Eink typically uses a much more expensive active matrix backplane that can address pixels individually.)

  3. The SmartDisk FireLite Xpress Hard Drive…

    I know what you’re thinking, "big deal, another hard drive" but the SmartDisk FireLite Xpress boasts one cool feature of having a screen that can display information about the drive.? Now you won’t have to hook it up to see that last time …

  4. Kouroth Avatar
    Kouroth

    Why didn?t they just use e-paper?