By Patrick Avenell
SYDNEY, NSW: Hitachi has this morning released its new LifeStudio external hard drive brand. There are eight models under the LifeStudio umbrella, four of which feature a patent-pending design including a USB flash drive for improved usability.
Looking more like speakers than hard disk drives, LifeStudio devices sit vertically on their included stands when in use. When connected via USB 2.0, users can transfer files between their computer hard drive and the device either manually or automatically, depending on their preference. Users can also program the included software to transfer files from the LifeStudio hard disk to a 4GB USB flash drive, which docks magnetically to the front of unit.
This means that users who automatically transfer their media files, such as photos, videos and music, to their external hard drive for long term storage, can quickly and conveniently move them to a USB drive for use on other computers. For those that appreciate the small things, the cap on this USB drive is tethered to the thumb drive, so it can’t be permanently separated from its body.
In an effort to appeal to the “Digital Natives” (Hitachi’s words) out there, LifeStudio products come with software that includes automatic posting to Facebook, Flickr and Picasa. Although handy, one drawback of this is that you can only post one image at a time to Facebook, rather than creating an album with 60 images.
Furthermore, this software includes connected media content, such as access to news, sport, weather, videos and other embedded content.
At launch, the LifeStudio range will only be available from JB Hi-Fi.
LifeStudio Desk Plus (with USB drive): RRP $189 (1TB) and RRP $279 (2TB).
LifeStudio Mobile Plus (with USB drive): RRP $149 (320GB) and RRP $179 (500GB).
LifeStudio Desk: RRP $159 (1TB) and RRP $249 (2TB).
LifeStudio Mobile: RRP $119 (320GB) and RRP $149 (500GB).
In this image provided by Hitachi, the portablity of this device's included USB key is highlighted. This is the LifeStudio Desk Plus model.