Monday, February 16, 2009

Samsung Puts Solid-State Drives in Camcorders




Samsung has launched a posse of cool-looking high-definition camcorders that store video on internal solid-state drives (SSD), as well as a compact digital camcorder that targets YouTubers.
The big news here is SSD storage, which provides fast, durable onboard memory.

The flagship of Samsung’s line, the HMX-H106, is (so far) the first camcorder to come stocked with a 64-gigabyte SSD. Up until now, camcorder makers have employed a variety of storage media, including tape, DVDs, flash memory and small hard drives. Just as in laptops, SSD storage represents a significant achievement because it is fast, lightweight and has no moving parts, which makes it more durable when compared with standard hard-drive technology.

Samsung did not provide pricing information for the new camcorders. Expect to pay a premium for SSD drives, however.
Samsung announced two other SSD models, the HMX-H105 (with a 32-gigabyte SSD) and HMX-H104 (with a 16-gigabyte SSD). The company’s SSD camcorders enable users to expand memory capacity by adding an SD/SDHC memory card. A fourth new camcorder, the HMX-H100, relies on SD/SDHC memory for storage, rather than an internal SSD.

The H105, H104, and H100 will be available in March, but you’ll have to wait an extra month for the 64-gigabyte H106.
The company also debuted a youth-oriented compact camcorder, the SMX-F34, with 16 gigabytes of built-in flash memory and a 42x zoom, as well as the HMX-R10, which will be able to capture still digital photos at a resolution of 9 megapixels.

Read our full coverage of C.E.S. at
www.nytimes.com/personaltech.

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