Slot Loading CD/DVD drives in Laptops? When?

[axelfox]

I was at Fry's today b/c my friend was looking for a laptop after his got stolen at school :|. As I was perusing the Apple G4 Ti, I noticed the slot load drive. The thickness of Apple wasn't much thinner than other laptops with standard tray drives, such as the Fujitsu S series (which I have).

Why don't laptop makers step towards a slot loading drives? My guess is that they cost (way) more than then the tray.

Your thoughts?

 

[Braxus]

My guess is that it could be that slot load drives tend to have a shorter life... Foreign objects may have easier access to the drive... My guess, I could be wrong. 😉

 

[MacNStein]

I would imagine it has to do with price. Tray loaders, I would imagine, are more problematic due to the potential of the tray breaking off or getting damaged, but that's my assumption.

 

[GizmoFreak]

There's a vpr matrix model with a slot loading drive

 

[Rufio]

i have that vpr matrix laptop

it rules

but it's loud

 

[jschuk]

Macintosh has it on one of their Titaniums too. I was told by a person who works on them that they are flimsy and break more often then the standard tray design.

Sorry, just reread your message and noted that you were looking at a Titanium laptop.

 

[fr]

Is there a pin hole on slot-loading drives so you can get the CD out manually?

 

[bastula]

http://www.mke.panasonic.co.jp/en/device/storage/dvd_cd/cw_8122_b.html

This is the drive that they use in the Titanium Powerbooks. I know that all they do in the TiBooks is remove the front fascia of the drive, since the case has the cutout already. I've been looking into getting one and replace my trayloading DVD in my Dell Inspiron. I emailed them, but seems like you can't buy them individually. I wonder if a bunch of people would be interested in purchasing a quantity and splitting it up? Not sure the price...