News - Next-gen Google Nexus 7 tablet spotted online

[TheAnimus]

Alternatives the new samsung M2 PCI based SSD format looks a possibility - very easy to scale to 1TB, but I suspect has both a weight and battery life issue.

Not very likely, very expensive, and ultimately far too fast for these designs of chips. IIRC the newer ARM cortex can support a 1 lane PCIe, but it mostly doesn't.

For what your wanting, having a WiFi HDD backpack or a USB hdd which you plug in, would be the best bet, the most economic anyway. I have a 1TB drive I carry round and frequently use with my Surface RT.

[cjs150]

CampGareth: I totally agree pricing needs to come down. I am also convinced it will - the consumerpro camera market will drive that.

The problem is that you are just not going to get free wifi everywhere. We are still in a world where lots of hotels charge for wifi. I like the idea of wifi hotspot HDDs, I already cart around a non-wifi HDD enclosure because my steam powered netbook has so little storage. But particularly on holiday it is not ideal. The one problem I can see is that if you go to a hotel and 20+ guests all have wifi hotspot HDDs that could be a massive interference problem.

Where I disagree with you is that tablet manufacturers and google are not making the technologies choices because it is the right thing to do, they are doing so to make money. If you want to store your entire movie collection in the cloud you have 2 problems - you will exceed the free space so will be paying a monthly fee; and crucially you are seriously at risk of USA deleting your entire collection because they deem it piracy and/or contravenes digital millenium copyright act because you removed the copy protections (format shifting for personal use in UK is not prosecuted). You also run the risk, if holidaying in USA of being arrested and jailed

Maybe you are happy taking those risks. I am not.

[TheAnimus]

The one problem I can see is that if you go to a hotel and 20+ guests all have wifi hotspot HDDs that could be a massive interference problem.

Not really, the range and power output of them is tiny. Unless your staying in a series of closets, it will be fine.

[Noli]

Funkstar: the last thing I want to do is to have to transcode to another format. It just takes too much time.

High quality lossless Blu-ray rip (of my legally owned Blu rays!)works out at roughly 15GB per movie. Going on holiday I would want 15-20 blu-rays and maybe 50 TV episodes (say 1-1.3 G per 45 mins) and some music. 500Gb storage would do it!
That is not extreme. Largest SD card is currently 256Gb (eyewatering price though) so a 512 Gb SD card cannot be far off.
I believe the official specs for SD cards currently top out at 2Gb capacity so there is the ability to create a tablet with loads of storage capability

If you need 500GB portable storage for films - and I personally can sympathise with your usage scenario (would like the same myself) - surely the only (relatively affordable) solution is a 2.5" HDD or SSD plugged in via OTG USB when you need to. After all, if you're watching films, you're stationary and having a small slim HDD enclosure hanging off is not a big deal. Other advantage is then that the HDD could be plugged easily into any other devices or upgrade replacements i.e. you don't have to keep buying and selling lots of expensive inbuilt storage. The new Nexus 7 should support OTG USB I imagine (as the current one does I'm sure). I'm only upset that my Nexus 4 does not support OTG. What an oversight for a smartphone with notably low storage. Grrr!