Samsung has launched their new R55 notebook computer that sports their new hybrid HDD technology to speed data access. With an MSRP of a bit over $1900 it is certainly not cheap. Other features include a 15.4” WXGA LCD, 80GB Hybrid HDD at 5400 RPM with 256Mb OneNAND Flash, NVIDIA GeForce 7400 graphics, Vista Premium and a super multi DL optical drive.

Samsung claims that the hybrid HDD can increase data read performance by as much as 26%, 71% on data write speed and 32% lower power consumption when used with small data chucks of up to 10MB. I guess one could assume by the fact that Samsung stipulates performance increases are with small files that the performance gains on larger files is not as significant. The hybrid drive technology also can increase drive life expectance as well, which is great for protecting critical data like your downloaded episodes of Lost from before the show really sucked. Story and image via PC Joint