One of the problems with all the cool portable devices on the market today is that they tend to make for a lot of desk clutter—particularly if they’re things you want to take with you all the time, like, say, a phone. For iPhone and iPod users, Buffalo Technology has come up with the Dualie, a dock that combines both a charging dock for an iPhone or iPod along with a 500 GB portable hard drive that can be popped out and taken anywhere.
The Dualie dock connects to a computer using USB 2.0 (and also sports an extra USB 2.0 port and a mini USB port for peripherals), and comes with adapters for docking (and charging) the iPhone, iPod touch, iPod classic, and iPod nano. But hooking up an iPod to a computer is pretty old-school: the Dualie also comes with a portable 500 GB hard drive that sports USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800 interfaces, making it easy to transfer and transport large amounts of data—and the standard interfaces mean you don’t have to have a Dualie dock at a destination, any USB or FireWire cable will do. The drive comes preformatted for Mac OS X, but the Dualie will also work with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7
Right now the Dualie is an exclusive through Apple, although we imagine it will migrate to other retailers eventually. And that might be good for its pricing: Apple wants $249.95 for the Dualie—although, if you’re already in the market for a 500 GB drive and an iPod/iPhone dock, that’s not a horrible price.
