“Nguyen [Hitachi’s global storage technologies media relations head] stressed that her company’s $499 pricing for the hard drive at retail as a standalone item is ‘a suggested selling price only.’ She also said: ‘Standalone Microdrive products provide additional value over embedded products used in consumer electronic devices in their ability to be removed and used in a variety of different devices.
.Embedded Microdrive media is only designed to work in the device for which it was originally intended.’
The drives that ship embedded within devices are custom-built for Hitachi’s OEMs, and the features available inside the drives may not be as complete as those available at retail.
‘Some of the drives we ship today are used by consumers in products like digital cameras as removable storage: in other cases, the drives are designed inside devices such as MP3 players where the drive is not meant to be removed by end users.’”
