Datel 4GB Hard Drive Review
Published by Jakanden 3 years, 1 month ago in Hardware, PSP, Reviews.One of the highly sought after products for the PSP is the Datel 4GB Hard Drive. This hard drive, released in October has been talked about for weeks but has many people leery of buying it due to it’s high price, apparent bulk and lack of reviews. How does it stack up and rate?
Well let’s first take a look at what you get with the package.
The Datel 4GB Hard Drive comes with the following accessories:
High Speed USB 2.0 Cable
4GB PSP Hard Drive
X2 Double capacity battery
Media Manager PC Software Disc
The Hard Drive and X2 Battery
The Hard Drive itself is extremely easy to install and setup. It comes attached with a flexible Memory Stick adapter that plugs into the Memory Stick slot on the PSP and then the you simply snap in the hard drive into the two holes on the back of your PSP. It is sturdy and does not come lose or feel like it is about to fall out. When you boot up your PSP, the hard drive is immediately recognized by the Firmware and gives you 3803 MB of free space. The X2 Battery is even easier as you simply open the battery compartment and switch out your standard battery for the X2. It comes with a case to cover the battery which also doubles as a balance for the hard drive.
Many people are complaining about this accessory ruining the portability of the PSP as it is considered bulky and ugly. When both units are added to the PSP, it adds about 4 ounces to the total weight. Considering the PSP itself runs about 10 ounces this may sound like a lot, but in practice it is not all that bad. You will feel the extra weight, there is no doubt about it, but it is evenly distributed on both sides of the unit and easy to get used to. You will also discover that it has the added benefit of making the PSP extremely comfortable when holding. The reason for this is that X2 battery and hard drive create somewhat of a PS2 controller style to the PSP making it fairly ergonomic and much better suited to long hours of play. I also found that the portability of the PSP was not ruined much at all. It still fit into my pants or jacket pocket without any problems and it did not feel especially heavy when there.
One cannot deny how it looks though. It is immediately noticeable when you are using it and I was often asked by people “What is that on your PSP?” and having to explain what it was. Additionally, there are NO PSP cases for this unit. I ended up having to use a Pelican Face Armour as nothing else would protect it. I am sure this will be remedied in the future since this accessory is still fairly new but it is something to consider.
Media Manager PC Software
The Media Manager software is actually a decent piece of software for those who are already not familiar with how to convert videos or transfer music. It has an easy to navigate menu system consisting of 4 tabs. These are “Video”, “Music”, “Images” and “Saves”. While music and images are fairly straight-forward, the videos tab gives you have a number of options for converting and transferring videos to the PSP. You can determine the quality of your video, whether you want it to be in full screen or wide screen and if you want to use the MP4 of AVC formats. If you have your PSP plugged in, it automatically renames the file and puts it in the correct location on your PSP. Obviously, the higher quality you choose, the longer it takes, but I found that setting it at “high” quality produces excellent videos with a decent transfer rate. If you already have software you are comfortable using, such as PSP Video 9 or 3GP Converter then you probably will not need this.
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Another cool feature of this software is the Saves option. When you select this, you have the option of downloading a number of saved games from the web and having them put automatically to your PSP. Since the software checks the web each time you click on this tab, you can constantly get new save files and in many cases you can choose between the EU and US formats of those game saves.
Is it worth the price?
The real question when it comes to this is simply “Is it worth it”? Upon an initial glance it would appear so. For roughly $200 (USD) you get a 4GB Hard Drive and an X2 Battery along with the above software and cable. The X2 alone will run you around $50 and a Sandisk 1GB Memory Card will run about $100. So for an extra $50 you are getting 3GB extra of hard drive space and an apparent extension on your battery life.
The reality is that you cannot really consider the X2 as a bonus. If you use the hard drive with the standard 1800mAh battery, it will be completely drained in a matter of an hour or two so the X2 is basically a requirement. The more severe problem of this accessory relates to accessing and transferring data. In this, the Datel 4GB hard drive is significantly slower than the SanDisk Memory Sticks. I ran some tests so I can give you an idea of the difference in accessing and transferring data. Now keep in mind that it is well known that the SanDisk Memory Sticks are faster than the Sony Memory Sticks. I am unsure how the hard drive compares to the Sony Memory Stick PRO as I only have the SanDisk versions. Click here for the results of these tests.
So as you can see, the hard drive runs quite a bit slower. Now, I did speak to Ian with Datel who informed me that this was a problem with the early batches of the 4GB hard drive and that the issue has been fixed. I followed his advice and got a second unit from a different shipment and had the exact same issue so I am personally unable to confirm if this is true or not. I have also spoken to a number of people who have purchased brand new units and still experience the same problem so who knows.
On a related note, I have read numerous complaints on the web about audio/visual sync issues. Datel has stated that this was corrected in Firmware version 2.0 and this has been confirmed. So if you are using Firmware below 2.0, you will experience issues with watching videos and listening to music. This is another thing to consider if you are a homebrew fan and want this accessory.
So in summary, if you can deal with the lack of an available case, the necessity to upgrade to Firmware 2.0, the additional bulk and the slow data transfer, this might be for you. As stated previously, I am sure the case issue will be remedied in the future and the data transfer issues are supposedly corrected in the newer units. I myself do not think this product is currently worth the price though and I am far happier using a standard 1GB SanDisk Memory Stick.
I give the Datel 4GB Hard Drive a 5 out of 10. It has great potential, but falls just short of reaching its mark.
i didnt think this was tha tgood. ill wait for a REAL hard drive. they could have put a flash memory chip in it like the nano and it would have been ALOT smaller
I was highly disappointed with the product myself. The bulk really isn’t that bad but the latency in data transfer is extremely upsetting.
you’re happier with 1gb? you must not listen to music very often.
Actually I have about 5 CD’s on there and I always have about 5 to 6 podcasts saved as well =)
For the price they are asking, it’s most definitly not the smartest purchase. I could buy a new psp for what they are asking for it. I could possibly be persuaded to buy something like this if the capacity was larger and data transfer was faster.
This product would easily have received a 7 or 8 if it had a higher transfer rate and I honestly would not have returned it.
It’s nice storage for media, but the bulk of the thing is what gets me. I’d rather get a 2GB Duo Pro stick and be done with it!
What’s even worse is how the thing doesn’t really stick on very well, at least not mine. It doesn’t snap right on to the PSP but rather has two plastic columns that fit into the screw holes on the left/back side of the PSP. That’s about it. They sink in, but the fit is not perfectly snug and the hard drive does have some wobble to it when attached. Blah!
What they need to do is make a PSP sized 4GB stick, and I’d be happy.
Having had 4 of these, I can honestly say the build quality is appalling. The best of the 4 lasted 1 day. After the 2nd was returned, and the next failed, I opened it up to have a look, the end of the connector that plugs into the card slot, is soldered onto an adapter board, as the original board inside is made for a different connector. This fitting is really bad, really bad soldering, the pins all over the show, and then a big dab of hot glue put on to “hopefully” hold it in place.
The last two I had, it was the glus that was helping the pins to connect, as they had zero solder on them! The store that I got these from had 12 returned out of a batch of 50, and said that they were dropping them until the build quality improved.
I’ve since gone for a USB OTG drive, 40gb, plugs straight into the USB socket o nthe PSP and you can transfer files onto you mem stick. In the UK, £80, that’s about US$140