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The Best Black Friday Gadget Deals

Michael Kwan — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:56:56 +0000

The biggest shopping day of the year is upon us and that means we’re about to get bombarded with all sorts of flyers and online promotions. We’ve gathered up some of the best Black Friday gadget deals in one convenient place for you, so let’s get down to it.

The Nikon COOLPIX S9200 16 megapixel compact camera with 18x zoom and full 1080p video on sale for $169, a savings of $130.95 off the regular price.

If you prefer interchangeable lenses, the Nikon V1 digital camera system with the 10-30mm VR1 kit lens is on sale for 59% off, bringing the price down to just $369.

The Panasonic ES-LT71-S men’s wet/dry shaver with rechargeable battery, Arc 3 technology and vortex cleaning system is just $74.99, which is 63% off the regular price.

Those looking for a great tablet might consider the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, which starts at $199 for the 16GB model with special offers. That includes free super saver shipping too.

Next, we have the SanDisk Extreme 120GB SSD with super fast 6.0Gbps transfers in a 2.5-inch form factor for just $96.82, representing a monumental savings of $141.74.

The Western Digital My Passport 2TB portable hard drive with USB 3.0 comes with automatic backup software is selling for $149.99, including free one-day shipping if you pay with your Discover Card.

Save 49% on the Otterbox Defender Case with screen protector and stand for the new 4th-gen iPad, as well as the iPad 2 and iPad 3. It’s on sale for $45.88.

There are a bunch of deals on the Samsung Galaxy S III, including getting it from Sprint for as low as $39.99 on contract. Verizon is doing $59.99 on contract, while the AT&T price is $99.99 on contract.

Finally, there’s a deal for $230 off the Toshiba U845-S406 Ultrabook with Intel Core i5, 14″ display, 6GB DDR3-1600 memory, 500GB HDD + 32GB SSD, and a free t-shirt. Get it for $649.99, including free shipping, at Newegg.com; the deal expires today!

And check out many more deals on Amazon. What are you buying this year?

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$50 off 3TB Western Digital My Book Essential External HDD

Michael Kwan — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:08:24 +0000

Do you need another external hard drive to stash your increasingly large collection of music, movies and photos? Look no further than this great deal on a three terabyte drive from Western Digital. The price has been cut by $50, bringing it down to just $149.

To be more specific, this is the Western Digital My Book Essential 3TB Desktop External Hard Drive (model number WDBACW0030HBK-NESN). It’s a black block filled with three terabytes of storage and you can connect to your computer via either USB 2.0 or, preferably, via USB 3.0 for data transfers that are up to three times faster.

This external drive from Western Digital also has automatic, continuous backup software. This means that when you connect it to your computer, you can have it so that it keeps backing up your data so you don’t have to do it manually. That’s really handy, but you can choose to disable that feature if you want too. You also get WD SmartWare visual backup software to provide a visual display of your backup as it happens. You can keep your data safe with password protection and encryption too.

You can pick up this WD 3TB drive at Newegg.com for $140. It comes with a 2-year limited warranty, plus a 1-year extended warranty and free shipping.

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WD My Passport gets ruggedized with the Digital Nomad Case

Michael Kwan — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:58:30 +0000

Most people would likely agree that Western Digital hard drives are pretty good quality, but they might not exactly be tough enough to handle the harshest of conditions. WD is stepping into this sphere with the unveiling of the WD Nomad rugged case for My Passport portable hard drives.

Said to be “built for the harsh realities of life,” this ruggedized case will protect your portable spinning platter for drops of up to seven feet. Go ahead and dunk water all over the drive or throw it through the desert sand. The Nomad should keep your data safe and functional. There’s a “shock-absorbing elastomer cushion” on the inside and a polycarbonate casing on the outside.

If you’re thinking this sounds mildly familiar, you might remember the LaCie Tank, which offered some similar claims. Both adhere to military specs for ruggedness and both chime in at a similar $30 price point. WD just better hope that Creative doesn’t get on their back about the whole Nomad naming scheme.

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Western Digital Buys Hitachi’s Hard Drive Wing for $4.3 Billion

Michael Kwan — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 01:07:30 +0000

You know how everybody owns everybody and even though you see different brands, they really are the same company? That kind of idea infiltrates just about every industry and the hard drive business is no exception. The latest deal sees Hitachi Global Storage Technologies snatched up by Western Digital for a cool $4.3 billion.

The deal is worth $3.5 billion in cash and $750 million in WD common stock. The brand and headquarters for Western Digital will emerge out the other end, but Hitachi GST’s president and CEO will take over as the president of Western Digital.

Will this help or hurt innovation? Will this help or hurt competition? Well, we already saw a similar deal six years ago when Seagate picked up Maxtor for $2 billion. With today’s announcement, the WD vs. Seagate battle just stepped up another notch, as if it wasn’t already clear enough that these are the two biggest juggernauts in the HDD game.

Western Digital to Acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Combination of Hard Drive Companies Will Create Industry’s Broadest Product Portfolio and a Significant Pool of Resources for Innovation

IRVINE, Calif. and SAN JOSE, Calif., March 7, 2011 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) and Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT / TSE:6501) announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby WD will acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $4.3 billion. The proposed combination will result in a customer-focused storage company, with significant operating scale, strong global talent and the industry’s broadest product lineup backed by a rich technology portfolio.

Under the terms of the agreement, WD will acquire Hitachi GST for $3.5 billion in cash and 25 million WD common shares valued at $750 million, based on a WD closing stock price of $30.01 as of March 4, 2011. Hitachi, Ltd. will own approximately ten percent of Western Digital shares outstanding after issuance of the shares and two representatives of Hitachi will be added to the WD board of directors at closing. The transaction has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close during the third calendar quarter of 2011, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. WD plans to fund the transaction with a combination of existing cash and total debt of approximately $2.5 billion.

WD expects the transaction to be immediately accretive to its earnings per share on a non-GAAP basis, excluding acquisition-related expenses, restructuring charges and amortization of intangibles.

The resulting company will retain the Western Digital name and remain headquartered in Irvine, California. John Coyne will remain chief executive officer of WD, Tim Leyden chief operating officer and Wolfgang Nickl chief financial officer. Steve Milligan, president and chief executive officer of Hitachi GST, will join WD at closing as president, reporting to John Coyne.

“The acquisition of Hitachi GST is a unique opportunity for WD to create further value for our customers, stockholders, employees, suppliers and the communities in which we operate,” said John Coyne, president and chief executive officer of WD. “We believe this step will result in several key benefits-enhanced R&D capabilities, innovation and expansion of a rich product portfolio, comprehensive market coverage and scale that will enhance our cost structure and ability to compete in a dynamic marketplace. The skills and contributions of both workforces were key considerations in assessing this compelling opportunity. We will be relying on the proven integration capabilities of both companies to assure the ongoing satisfaction of our customers and to bring this combination to successful fruition.”

“This brings together two industry leaders with consistent track records of strong execution and industry outperformance,” said Steve Milligan, president and chief executive officer, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “Together we can provide customers worldwide with the industry’s most compelling and diverse set of products and services, from innovative personal storage to solid state drives for the enterprise.”

Hiroaki Nakanishi, president, Hitachi, Ltd. said, “As the former CEO of Hitachi GST, I always believed in the potential of Hitachi GST to become a larger and more agile company. This is a strategic combination of two industry leaders, both growing and profitable. It provides an opportunity for the new company to increase customer and shareholder value and expand into new markets. Additionally, it is important to us that WD shares common values with Hitachi GST to create a more global company that is well positioned to define a broader role in the evolving storage industry.”

WD’s exclusive financial adviser on the transaction is Bank of America Merrill Lynch; its lead legal adviser is O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Goldman, Sachs & Co serves as financial adviser to Hitachi, Ltd. and Hitachi GST. Legal advisers to Hitachi, Ltd. and Hitachi GST are Morrison Foerster LLP and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates, respectively.

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SSD prices fall while HDD prices rise

Sufyan bin Uzayr — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 02:30:30 +0000

If you are planning to buy a Solid State Drive (SSD), it may very well be the right time to do so. Going by the present trends, Solid State Drive manufacturers such as Intel and Adata Technology have been dropping SSD prices by as much as 10-15% in order to increase sales and market penetration rate.

On the other hand, Hard Disk Drive (HDD) prices have gone up substantially in the fourth quarter of 2010. The rise in HDD pricing can be attributed to the fact that all major Hard Disk Drive manufacturers, including the likes of Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and Hitachi GST, have recently cut down their production capacity in the final quarter of 2010. Judging by unofficial figures, the price rise in the HDD segment is estimated to be as high as 4-5% (for 500 GB models).

Since the SSD prices have shown a decline and most major manufacturers — such as Samsung Electronics, Micron, Intel, Toshiba and Hynix — have all shown an affection for the development of 20nm processes, it is expected that the sales of SSDs shall rise by year end.

So does this imply that SSD may finally pose a threat to HDD? No, definitely not. With Solid State Drives still 10 times costlier than traditional Hard Disk Drives, the fall in price won’t affect the HDD sales much. Yet, for those who were inhibited by the awkwardly high pricing of Solid State Drives, 2010 year end may perhaps be the much anticipated and eagerly awaited ‘auspicious’ occasion to buy one!

Source: Digitimes

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WD SiliconEdge Blue SDDs are fast, rugged, and worth every penny

Fabrizio Pilato — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:32:43 +0000

Western Digital (WD) announced they have joined the Solid State Drive (SSD) foray with their new WD SiliconEdge 2.5-inch SSD family of storage solutions. To me, reliability and speed go hand-and-hand, with the introduction of SSDs to the WD lineup both of those concerns are addressed.

The WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs are “rated” by WD with read speeds of up to 250 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write transfer rates up to 170 MB/s. That’s quite a fast family of drives. In comarisson the 2.5-inch Western Digital WD Scorpio Blue 500 GB, 5400 rpm model tested at 67.30 MB/s and the Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 320 GB, 7200 rpm tested in at 63.96 MB/s, according to Toms Hardware using the h2benchw tool.

With no moving parts, increased speeds, and ruggedness, SSDs are tolerant to drops, shocks and vibrations. They will also lower the power consumption on your system, thus increasing your battery life. The downside, they are still expensive as hell. Western Digital’s suggested retail price for their 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB are $279.00, $529.00 and $999.00 USD respectively.

Western Digital is looking to get their SSDs into OEMs as buildable upgrades for consumers, these drives will definitely appeal to mobile professionals, and with 250,000 hours of life expectancy they capable of enduring read-intensive applications.

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