| A new wave of mobile phones equipped with tiny yet | | | | second half of 2006.Although current portable MP3 |
| powerful hard disk drives is threatening to put an end | | | | players such as Apple's iPod and its competitors can |
| to the meteoric rise of the iPod as the public's | | | | store as much as 60GB of digital music, companies like |
| favourite portable digital music player.When you look at | | | | Toshiba and Seagate are already developing |
| the typical consumer, there are three things that they | | | | handset-friendly hard drives that measure around one |
| may come back to their house for if they have left | | | | inch and will soon be able to match this capacity.With |
| one of them behind: their wallet, keys and mobile | | | | this level of memory, you can replicate all the audio |
| phone.Now the cellular industry is trying to get to the | | | | functions currently found in a standalone MP3 player. |
| point where even the wallet and the keys are part of | | | | So the question becomes, why do you need two |
| the handset. There is a clear trend by which the mobile | | | | separate gadgets to accomplish the same goal? ."Both |
| phone is positioning itself as the singular device that | | | | the standalone MP3 player and the mobile phone are |
| you take with you at all times.Two years ago | | | | pretty much the same form-factor - play music - the |
| Samsung Electronics became the first handset maker | | | | mobile offers an increasing number of features, with |
| to incorporate a hard disk drive (HDD) inside one of its | | | | playing music being just one of them.This new breed |
| models, featuring 1.5GB of data storage. Soon | | | | of mobiles has the potential not only to rival but also |
| afterwards Nokia was launching its N91 phone/music | | | | surpass the MP3 player as the portable music device |
| player with an embedded 4GB HDD. Then Samsung | | | | of choice, but it wont happen overnight. There'll be a |
| responded again with an 8GB device (the SGH-i310), | | | | timeframe during which the cellphone will still need to |
| which is scheduled for a European launch during the | | | | catch up technologically with established MP3 players. |