ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

Intel announces a smaller, more affordable addition to the 335 SSD series-- one with 80GB capacity aimed at budget-conscious customers wanting an ultra-fast boot drive.

The 80GB model joins current 180GB and 240GB offerings, and is available in standard 2.5-inch form factor within a new case design. The series is the first to carry Intel's 20nm MLC NAND flash (a co-development with IM Flash Technologies) and the SandForce SF-2281 controller.

Intel claims the SSDs deliver up to 500MB/s sustained sequential read and 450MB/s write speeds, with up to 42000 read and 52000 write IOPS.

Go Intel SSD 335 Series

Microsoft announces European availability for the "Pro" version of the Surface-- by May 2012 the Windows 8 tablet should be available in most of our territories.

Countries include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

The tablet was previously available only the US, Canada and China.

Microsoft explains the reasoning behind the staggered rollout as "[making] sure we have the volume of devices in place and alignment with our retail partners to do each launch well."

Go Expanding Surface Pro Availability (Surface Blog)

Western Digital starts shipping the WD Blue HDD and WD Black SSHD-- a pair of 2.5-inch drives just 5mm thick, a world first according to the company.

The current mobile storage standards stand at either 7mm or 9.5mm thickness.

Designed for slim devices and space-constrained environments, the drives deliver 500GB capacities with 400G (Blue) and 1000G (Black) non-operation shock specifications, Edge Card technology (including new small form factor SFF-8784 edge connector) and dual stage actuators.

WD gives no exact specs of the Black SSHD, but the Blue HDD features x1 500GB platter, 16GB DRAM cache and SATA-6Gbs/s interface within a stronger aluminium chassis.

Go WD Shipping World's First 5mm 2.5-inch Hard Drive

ABI Research believes in the "strong potential" of the smartwatch-- according to the analyst changing consumer perceptions will lead to smartwatch shipments of over 1.2 million units for 2013 alone.

“The strong potential emergence of smartwatches can be attributed to several reasons,” ABI says. “Contributing factors include the high penetration of smartphones in many world markets, the wide availability and low cost of MEMS sensors, energy efficient connectivity technologies such as Bluetooth 4.0, and a flourishing app ecosystem.”

One can divide wearables in 4 categories-- notification types, voice operational smartwatches, hybrid smart watches and completely independent smartwatches.

Notification type devices include the MetaWatch and Cookoo smartwatches, providing alerts of the incoming call and message variety.