Gizmodo: optical drive

Dell 14z Laptop Reviewed: Pretty Slim, Pretty Light, Pretty Cheap

Dan Nosowitz — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EDT

Laptop Mag took a look at Dell's new optical drive-less, 14-inch thin-and-light 14z laptop and, for the most part, liked what they saw. It's a very solid performer for its class, the price is right and it's nice and slim.

Though laptops without optical drives have become more and more common, a 14-inch laptop is quite large to go that route. But we're impressed with the 14z's benchmarks, mostly due to Nvidia's 9400M graphics chip—it outperformed other machines in its class at almost every turn, only failing at "greenness," as it's not particularly energy-efficient. But battery life was excellent at 5.5 hours, it's nicely thin and light (only .8 inches and 4.4 pounds) and the price is certainly appealing: Best Buy is selling a model for $750 with 3GB RAM, a 320GB HDD, 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo, and HDMI-out, which is great for such a lithe machine. Seems like it's worth your time if you're looking for a cheap optical drive-less Windows machine for travelling. [Laptop Mag]

Century's Netbook Stand with DVD Super Multi-Drive

Andi Wang — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:00:13 EDT

Netbooks are great for travelers because they stick to the basic essentials—except sometimes you need an optical drive. Problem solved: this netbook stand doubles as a thigh-hair saver and a DVD multi-drive.

Supporting DVD±R/+RW (8x), DVD±R DL/-RW (6x), DVD-RAM (5x) and CD-R/-RW (24x), this multi-drive comes with two USB ports, weighs a little over a pound, and will be available for $100 in Japan starting this Friday. [Century via CrunchGear]

Slot Loading Xbox 360 Uses Guts of an iMac

Mark Wilson — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:10:00 EST

It's a matter of taste, but seeing the technological phenomenon in motion, this slot loading Xbox 360 is fairly enviable. Modded with a Frankensteinian hybrid drive combining half the Xbox's stock Hitachi (DVD) drive with half of an iMac's stock (CD-ROM) drive, the job looks like it must have been a complete pain. But luckily, we have the power of internet video to get our vicarious optical media insertion kicks. [Xbox-Scene via Hardocp]

Indian Spice Phone Has Optical Disk Drive For 2.5 Hour Movies

Jason Chen — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:00:27 EST

It's really unlikely that this Movie Phone from the Indian cellphone maker Spice would make it anywhere besides India, but it's an amazing phone because of what it's got on the back: an optical drive. This h.264 optical drive loads into the back of the phone much like UMDs into a PSP, and can fit a 2.5 hour film into one disc. There's going to be 40 movies available in India at launch, which will be followed by 1,000 more movies later. We only have one question, which will probably be the only time anyone on earth ever asks this question: Why didn't they just go with UMDs instead of making a proprietary format? [Tech Digest]