Given that Sandisk is also one of the world’s largest flash manufacturers, who also hold several important patents of their own, Sandisk have the same kind of manufacturer power as Samsung when it comes to having more than enough flash memory on hand to create whatever kind of flash device they want, and launch it when they want to.

Proponents of flash talk about how it will give you more battery life, and how it’s faster than a hard drive, but the reality seems to be only a 10% increase in battery life, which will a great thing, is still not that revolutionary. No doubt this will improve, but you’d think it’d be more than a 10% increase. Well, apparently not.

There are also reports that it is faster, and while benchmarks have shown that it is indeed faster, it doesn’t automatically turn your laptop into any more of a speed demon that it already should be.

One thing to note, however, is that laptops tend to use 4200RPM hard drives, and sometimes faster 5200RPM drives. If you had a faster hard drive, speed difference would be less, although you’d probably expect to use more battery power with a faster drive.

Sandisk aren’t selling the drive direct to consumers just yet – it’s only on sale to notebook manufacturers. Sandisk expects notebooks with their drive to appear sometime in the first six months of this year.

The cost of the drive is not yet publicly known, but reports say it is expected to add US $600 to the cost of a notebook. That’s nearly $1000 in Australian dollars and would currently be a big impediment to mass sales – especially if there’s only a 10% increase in battery life, and a likelihood of 32Gb being a smaller size than you’d get with an actual hard drive.

Interestingly, the Sandisk flash drive comes in a 1.8-inch configuration, instead of the usual 2.5-inch seen in most notebook drives, but naturally the smaller size is better as it more easily fits into UMPC, ultraportable and even regular size notebooks where a smaller drive leaves space to squeeze in other things.

Please read on to page 2 for the conclusion...