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The Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive bans the sale of devices containing levels of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and brominated flame retardants. It has already forced Palm to withdraw the Treo 650 smartphone, and now the hard disk-equipped LifeDrive will only be available while stocks last.

Palm took the unusual step of announcing in advance that it would soon be introducing an RoHS-compliant replacement for the Treo, but it has made no such assurance regarding the LifeDrive.

Palm, then operating in its short-lived palmOne guise, introduced the LifeDrive in May 2005 as the first Palm PDA fitted with an HDD. Previous handhelds had limited amounts of flash memory, restricting the amount of data that could be stored without recourse to external media.