This week in our look at miscellaneous product launches and announcements, we bring tidings from LaCie, Antec, CyberLink, and Warpia.
- Fast and tiny: LaCie FastKey goes from 0 to 260MB/s in 26cm3. The advent of USB 3.0 has breathed new life into the boring old world of thumb drives, giving us, among other solutions, LaCie’s premium FastKey. The FastKey purportedly hits transfer speeds of up to 260MB/s, and it’s been announced in 30GB, 60GB, and 120GB capacities, with pricing starting at $149.99 for the 30GB model.
- Antec rolls out High Current Gamer series. We already covered the launch of the High Current Pro lineup, but the High Current Gamer family delivers a slightly different formula, with 400W, 520W, 620W, 750W, and 900W variants, all with 80 Plus Bronze certification (which guarantees minimum power efficiency of 82% at loads of 20% and 100%). These units also feature 135-mm fans and Japanese capacitors. Antec covers the 750W and 900W models with a five-year warranty, while their lower-wattage siblings are only covered for three years.
- CyberLink launches PowerDirector 9. Video editing software doesn’t usually raise eyebrows here at TR, but the new version of CyberLink’s video editor is an exception. CyberLink claims this is the “world’s first native 64-bit consumer video editing software,” and it says PowerDirector 9 can “fully utilize every core of your CPU, every stream processor in your GPU, fixed function media processing, and all of your RAM memory.” (Both AMD and Nvidia graphics processors are supported.) Not too shabby for $99.95, if these claims check out.
- Warpia debuts advanced wireless docking station: The Easy Dock Pro. We looked at the original Warpia Easy Dock in our July 29 roundup; this version kicks things up a notch, supporting display resolutions of up to 1920×1080. The Easy Dock Pro can both mirror and extend your primary display onto an auxiliary one connected wirelessly, as well. List price: $149.99.
I think if you overlook the form factor, that LaCie USB 3.0 contraption has more in common with a portable SSD than a traditional thumb drive. Putting a 30-gig SSD in a 2.5″ enclosure would probably be a lot cheaper, of course, but that wouldn’t be as easy to carry around—and I don’t think there are many USB 3.0 enclosures out there.