USB Flash Drives, SD cards, MP3 Players, and more, all from Transcend

Hey everybody! I'm glad to announce that we will have the deal of the week back on track on Jan. 6th along with the continuation of the last poll that we had up before our Christmas promotion began. For those of you who do not know about the deal of the week, read about it in my previous postings under the "Deals" category. As of now, the 320GB Storejet portable hard disk drive and the 1GB IDE flash module is in the lead with the votes each with 33% of the entire votes. The polls will re-open on Dec. 29th to allow a good week of voting before the results are posted on Jan. 6th. Good luck and let's hope your choice will make it on that week!

Each year, there are people who don't realize what the meaning of Thanksgiving is even if it's written right into the word itself. First thing that comes to mind when you mention Thanksgiving will be turkey, next is ham, and then Christmas. Well, I am here to remind everyone that this coming holiday is all about giving to the needy and expressing thanks for the possessions that you have. In order to keep the spirit of the holiday alive, I am donating 5% of my revenue from www.transcendstore.com to UNICEF to alleviate world hunger. My goal is to be able to donate at least $1,000 by the end of the month from the revenue that is gained from my retail website. Now, $1,000 dollars may not seem a lot but in Zimbabwe, 10,000,000,000 old Zimbabwe dollars is equivalent to 1 new Zimbabwe dollar which means 1 US dollar = 562.590 new Zimbabwe dollars (as of 10/31/08.) At that time, 10 billion Zimbabwe dollars will net you 3 eggs. If you put that into persepective, $1,000 US dollars is a very generous donation for those people who are struggling to find food. So please help the cause by either visiting UNICEF and make a donation or go to my website and make a purchase. Do the right thing and help end world hunger. Visit www.transcendstore.com if you would like to contribute to the cause.

There is a lot of variety and competition when it comes to choosing a digital photo frame. Well I decided to review one of the photo frames that I purchased online, the Transcend TS2GPF720K, because it was a pretty sweet deal. The 7 inch photo frame itself has some nice features such as built in speakers, video playback, and an auto orientation sensor that will adjust your pictures to landscape or portrait modes. There are also a variety of ways to upload pictures to the frame via USB, Secure Digital, Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC), Compact Flash, Multi-Media Cards, Memory Sticks, and Micro SD cards. It pretty much has a built in card reader that doubles as expandable memory. Since it already has 2GB of internal memory, that extra space will display much more with those storage devices. Another nice thing they added was a remote control to control the slide show and other features but it's something not necessary to include since I already have a bunch of remotes sitting right in my living room.

The resolution of 800 x 480 displays nice crisp colors on a TFT LCD screen with a frame rate of 30fps which is quite good for viewing any videos. Models like the Sony DPF-D70 is comparable to this model because it offers the same features such as video playback however the DPF-D70 has features such as HDMI output that is not found in the TS2GPF720K. Which means that you can display it on a TV and have an even bigger display. Other than that, there's not much of a difference between the two brands besides a few add ons. It is entirely up to your taste if HDMI is needed for your slide show or not.

The video playback that is available on the T-Photo 720 can support avi., mov., mpg., mp4., and 3gp which is very useful if you like to use a particular format over another. Although, it is not the ideal place to view your videos, it is a nice feature to have just to impress everyone. The LCD screen also helps to present nice clean videos running up to 720 X 576 resolution. The photo frame also supports key codecs like Divx and Xvid for smoother transitions in video frames. Even with those specifications, there are other devices that would do a better job at playing videos like your computer. It is a shame that there are no Wi-Fi capabilities for the TS2GPF720K where there are a handful of digital photo frames that have this feature.

Nowadays, digital photo frames can be quite expensive with an average range of about $120-$130 per unit. The TS2GPF720K can be found as low as $105.99 with free shipping on the internet. Saving a good 15 dollars per unit is not a bad for a very good photo frame. Overall, this is a great buy to get the most out of your money. With so many features, there's not much you can complain about except if there was a bigger LCD screen. Currently, they only have a 7" screen but possibly in the near future it'll get to 10" or more. Visit this link, Transcend Digital Photo Frames, to find the best prices yet!

Everybody knows that shipping costs are a pain to deal with because it's a cost you shouldn't have to pay and some places over charge you for it. Well, you don't have to deal with that kind of hassle when you purchase certain items from my store, www.transcendstore.com. As of now, all portable hard drives and digital photo frames will have free shipping when you choose economical delivery. This will save you a lot of those extra charges at no cost when you place your order. All you have to do is enter the coupon code shipping_is_free during the checkout process. This offer lasts until we change the promotion so place your orders while you still can. Enjoy the site!

Here's a first look at the new JetFlash V95 USB flash drives that were just released. It's still small as ever but with a little bit of a twist. It takes some of the aspects of the V85 and mixed it with the V90 and you get a combination that results in the V95. It features a leather piece in the middle of the device for some grip which is surrounded by chrome casing. It functions like the V90 but this time there's a retractable drive for safe keeping of the device. Overall, it's pretty damn small since I actually have one on hand It's like the size of two US postage stamps put next to each other. If you can imagine that then, that's about the best description I can give everyone. Visit my store if you wanna purchase it. It's only $22 right now on sale!

Laptop owners should know that regular hard drives generate a good amount of heat whenever that disk is spinning around. They also know that it can get pretty noisy depending on some brands of hard drives. A good solution to all those problems is to invest in a Solid State Disk. These items are one of the newest items when it comes to hard drives and computer hardware. Some people may be wondering "how come I have never heard of this?" One reason for that is because this product has primarily been marketed to the military and particular industries, which means very little exposure to the public. Second of all, there's only a handful of manufacturers who actually make the products like Samsung and Sandisk, who are major manufacturers of Solid State Disks however; there are other companies that manufacture these products for mass distribution. Another reason why no one has heard of it is due to the fact that some companies do not expect the SSD market to take off until this year. Although conceptual and actual SSDs existed in the 1970s, the cost was so high that nobody could afford one. It is still quite pricey where prices can range from $200 - $1000 depending on the capacity and where you purchase it from.

Nowadays, it is not very hard to get this device but finding the right price will take some more time. A quick search on your favorite search engine or shopping website will give you quick hits about the Solid State Disks. It may be in the early stages like when the Hard Disk Drive first came out. Certainly there is limited space for the Solid State Disks, but over time that will gradually increase to the sizes that are available for hard disk drives.

So now that you have a brief history about SSD, there are some advantages and disadvantages that you should know about the drive:

Advantages - lighter than conventional hard drives - faster start-up times - No noise (no moving parts) - low read and write latency

Disadvantages - Price - Higher Vulnerability - Capacity

There are certainly more advantages than disadvantages when it comes to this technology however, these are only a brief list of the pros and cons of the item. Aside from the fact that it is lighter, the SSD can operate at very low read and write latencies which is a huge advantage to have because you won't have to wait for your computer to load programs at slow speeds. What also makes the the solid state very fast is that it does not rely on the physical location of data to read the file due to the constant seek time. Although the SSD plays a role with load time, the amount of RAM also determines how fast things load.

With this type of technology comes a price, and it is fairly expensive at the moment. Expect the prices to drop some time in the future when the technology improves.

Everyone knows the routine about shopping online. Usually, the first step you have to do is your research and that is when the problem starts. Nobody likes to research on their own time because it takes too long. Not everyone is like that but, in general, it is very time consuming to mix and match your options while checking out the prices. Well, that's what this guide is for but for USB flash drives. With this guide, you can shave some time off your research by knowing what to look for when you start reading the description or specification sheets online.

The first thing to look out for is the transfer rate of the drive that you are interested in. With each transfer, there is a read and write speed that each USB can achieve depending on the chip set and the computer that is being used. Generally, some websites will not have that kind of information on their website but most do have it. As a rule of thumb, most flash drives average about 10MB/s read speed and a 3MB/s write speed for the lower end models (I will refer the first speed as read and the second one as write.) For the higher end models, it can vary from 16MB/s and 10MB/s to 32MB/s and 20MB/s. Keep in mind that these can change from each manufacturer so take some time to see what you want out of your flash drive.

Another thing to look out for is the type of chips that are inside the flash drive. Most companies won't say what kind of chip set they use on their website but for your reference there are only two types that are used which is MLC and SLC. MLC stands for Multi Layer Cell where three bits of information is stored into one cell while SLC (Single Layer Cell) stores one bit of information in each cell. You may be thinking, "shouldn't MLC be faster than SLC?" Well it's really the exact opposite. Think of it as if there are three cars going to one destination: there will be traffic to see which one would go first but on a smaller scale. Compared to only one car going to one destination, there is very little traffic for that information to get through. If you're looking for fast transfer speeds, make sure it has SLC inside it.

The last aspect you should look for is the design of the flash drive. There are all sorts of kinds from the extremely tiny ones to the ones that have your favorite Star Wars character on them. Some of them even have a retractable heads for a cap-less design or a swivel design that act's like a pocket knife without the danger. Whichever one you choose may be too large to fit in the back of the computer. You may want to consider the size of the drive before you purchase, just in case it doesn't work out.

That's all the tips I can offer you at the moment. You can visit my website at

If you enter the coupon code indpday4 you'll get a 12% discount off portable hard drives, MP3 players, and digital photo frames at

The title of the world's fastest memory card can only belong to one. According to Rob Galbraith, a renowned imaging consultant, the Transcend 16GB UDMA 300x Compact Flash card is the first to breakthrough the 50MB/s in his tests. He is known to collect a database of information from tests that he conducts regarding compact flash cards, secure digital cards, card readers, and digital cameras. From that test, Transcend was able to come out on top of their competitors from PNY, Kingston, and Dane-Elec to claim the title of the fastest compact flash card available. Initially, the 300x compact flash card was supposed to have a transfer speed of 45MB/s but the test that was conducted by Galbraith proved otherwise. There are many factors to include which Galbraith takes into account such as, how different cameras will interact with each flash card. Some CF cards may become slower or faster depending on the build of the camera which is natural to happen in most electronic devices. However, with those factors, Transcend still came out as the fastest.

On top of the high transfer speeds, there are also features that are very useful such as, Error Correction Code (ECC). With each piece of data, it conforms to specific rules so that during data transfers, it will automatically correct itself. These handy features help prevent data from being corrupted or lost during transfers. For most camera users, the thought of having to send in your compact flash card back to the company to recover data is something that yells out inconvenience. With the ECC function, it can reduce the chances of having to send back the card back to the manufacturer. Thus, some manufacturers are including data recovery software to go along with the purchase of their flash cards to solve this problem.

Functionality and performance are what people look for when they purchase any item. If there is a need for a combination of both, the Transcend 16GB 300x card would be the ideal choice. There are many compact flash cards to choose from but that particular card is typically made for professional use. Normally, regular people do not need such a high quality of a product for your everyday use however, the compact flash cards plays a very important role in when it comes to storage and the rate of pictures that can be taken. The photographer relies on how much can be taken at the moment and with a high transfer speed, he/she does not have to worry if there will be a huge lag in time for the picture to show up.

To find this product you can visit Transcend Store where it is listed at $228 for the 16GB capacity. Prices change weekly so check back soon to save even more.

There are a couple of new items that have been released although, it is not actually new items but more like upgraded items. The JetFlash V20 series got another capacity in its family by adding a 32GB size. It holds the highest amount that a USB flash drive can hold for now. It's quite pricey but for that much storage, no wonder it's in the triple digits.Take a look at the picture.


Another item that I found to be an upgrade was in the 168 series. It has a different botanical design on it which is expected if you take a look at the earlier versions of the series. It now holds 16GB of space on a USB Flash Drive which is the second highest capacity that a USB drive can hold for now. This one is also pricey but it transfer files at a higher rate than the Value series. You might want to browse a bit before committing a large amount of money on one product. Feel free to take a look at other stuff on my website. Here's a picture for you to see the design.