More and more new laptops are released without DVD drives. As the laptops get thinner and thinner theres a category that has abondoned the DVD drive altogether. Instead they have various SD and other card drives to make up for the lack of afore mentioned instrument.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Asus-Note ... 32366.html

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-p ... prd_detail

And there are more but im too lazy to search for more links. Im not going to submerge into personal preference im just pointing out this so that should you find yourself in a position that someone ask you about laptops you can take this info into consideration.

There is one important thing about SD cards though. When you pass it to another person do not allow them to crab the card while you are still holding on to it. You should either: A) touch their hand with your finger to allow the static current to pass through because otherwise it will pass through the card which obviously bad, or B) drop it in their palm. That way there is no unwanted data loss or corruption.

Something to keep in mind when shopping for that new laptop.
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EDIT: Samsung 520

Not sure about this one. I cant see the dvd drive on any of the picture but theres an Optical Disk Drive listed on the Full Specs page.

Heres a picture from the right side:
http://www.am.ee/files/images/X520_BLACK_13.jpg

Heres a picture from the left side:
http://www.klick.ee/filemanager/product ... Upload.png

http://www1.euro.dell.com/ee/en/busines ... cs=eebsdt1

And here's the Dell Vostro v13. Optional External 8X DVD+/-RW or Blu-ray Disc.

optical drives are virtually useless nowadays. The only possible purpose is if you want to install an application that's on an optical drive.. and you can always either

a) image it and mount it in a virtual drive
b) put your laptop on a network with a pc that has one, then share out the PC's drive and install that way
c) get an external usb optical drive

Sucks if there's a disk check like for some games, but there's always ways around that. I consider that fair use... if I buy a game I should be able to play it on any PC I want to play it on.

I hear you. Ive done the part i didnt quote quite the many times myself but try telling that to someone who has had less experience with computers and judging by the price tag, aside the UX series, most of these thin laptops are designed to attract the hordes who no doubt will ask where do i shove this dvd. The samsung is sold here with a pricetag of around $675.-

The irony on the other hand runs deeper. Wasn't the Blu-ray supposed to lead us into the bright new future, yet heres a generation of computers that abondoned the optical drive totally.



Lets say a family has 3 or 4 laptops with no dvd drives then one external drive makes sense. Will the future external optical drives have built-in wireless network cards, like printers?

Yea, an external optical drive with a built in wireless connection would make sense. They don't have much transfer speed anyway.

I think blue ray was too little, too late. I hope Sony burns over it... I hate Sony. Everything's going to digital downloads and whatnot anyway. Besides, optical media is so freakin' slow. I'd rather use a high speed SD card for most things.