Super Talent has announced the release of a new series of low-cost Solid State Drives, this time in the 1.8" form-factor. The new Micro-SATA MasterDrive KX SSDs come in 30GB, 60GB, and 120GB capacities and are no more than 5 mm thick. The prices for the new drives have been set at $299, $449, and $679 respectively.

The new line of Solid state drives is a follow up of the 2.5" series that made quite a few waves when it was launched at the beginning of May. The Super Talent series of "affordable" SATA-II 2.5" SSDs were way under the market price of other similar devices. While most of the SSDs went on the market for thousands of dollars, even for the 128GB capacity model, Super Talent brought up a 120GB SSD for a mere $649 price.

As a follow up of the last month's 2.5" MasterDrive MX SSDs, the 1.8" form-factor solid state drive model is capable of reaching 120MB/sec read speed and around 40MB/sec write speed, less impressive, but quite enough for such a device. The fact that the write speed drops a lot under expectations seems to be the result of the lower-performing multi-level cell (MLC) NAND memory chips used in the SSDs.

"In terms of performance, power consumption, and shock and vibration resistance the MasterDrive KX is substantially better than hard drives. The MasterDrive KX is an excellent upgrade for laptop users looking for greater reliability or to accelerate bootup and load times," said Joe James, Super Talent Marketing Director.

The new series of 1.8" MasterDrive MX solid state drives will be officially launched by Super Talent for the UMPC market tomorrow. Shortly after the launch, the drives will also become available for purchase from specific online retailers like Newegg and NewBiiz.