Will Notebook DVD Burners Ever Get Any Faster?

[Aztech]

The desktop drives have moves to 16X, 18X and 20X. Do you guys know if/when we'll get a speed boost for the notebook drives?

 

[onlyCOpunk]

It's been like this for a while. Who knows. It might not be able to go faster due to phsyical restrictions, heat, vibration whathaveyou.

 

[heymrdj]

Agreed, a desktop drive can have it's guts spread out. In a laptop drive, the laser and spindle motor are mounted near together in the very thin drive slide. A 600 degree F laser sitting beside two delicate motors. Between heat, supporting a thin spindle system spinning a high rpm disk in a thin platform with zip vibration, and size of the motors, 8x may be the biggest we see until some fairly large advancements come in the pipeline.

 

[corkyg]

All true - and add to that consideration for increased power consumption. That's why I burn DVDs with an external drive.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: corkyg
All true - and add to that consideration for increased power consumption. That's why I burn DVDs with an external drive.

I burn DVDs on my lappy, but Toshiba specifically states (in the manual) to use wall power when watching/burning DVDs.

The larger problem is, ppl don't RTFM...

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
The larger problem is, ppl don't RTFM...

You got that right!!

 

[Throckmorton]

I just want freaking slot loading drives. There are only 3 available and they are $100

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton
I just want freaking slot loading drives. There are only 3 available and they are $100

You mean tray-loading drives?

 

[corkyg]

No, he means slot loaders like on the newest Acer Ferrari. Trays suck! I would gladly trade my Matsushita tray loader for a slot loader.

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: corkyg
No, he means slot loaders like on the newest Asus Ferrari. Trays suck! I would gladly trade my Matsushita tray loader for a slot loader.

Sorry...gotten confused. My Macbook has a slot-loading drive, and my eeePC has no optical so I forgot that most other PC's still use tray-loading drives.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: corkyg
No, he means slot loaders like on the newest Asus Ferrari. Trays suck! I would gladly trade my Matsushita tray loader for a slot loader.

For the record: Acer makes the Ferrari line of notebooks. Asus has the other car (Lamborghini).

Slot loaders would be nice, but not a necessary feature for me. There would be other things that I would rather see in more notebooks.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: corkyg
No, he means slot loaders like on the newest Acer Ferrari...

The Ferrari 1005?

The DVD/CD-ROM drive is external...

 

[TheStu]

I heard that Apple switched to the slot-loading drive because people had a habit of damaging their trayloading drives.

Now, the only instance that I have ever heard of this was about 4 years ago when i was working as a gopher/do-all guy for a law firm. One of the attorneys there had gotten a new assistant that was about 4' 11". She had been in earlier in the day, so the chair was all set up for her. While she was gone at lunch, he sat down to set up her user account and all that. At one point, the disk drive was used, and he forgot to close it. Well, the attorney in question is about 6' 4", so when he turned the chair to get up, his knee hit right against the disk drive, knocking it out of alignment. Since I was the do-all guy, it was up to me to order and install the new optical drive (which is why I actually know this whole story).

However, like I said, this is the only instance I have ever heard of, or know of where a person has damaged their tray-loading drive.

 

[Rottie]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: corkyg
All true - and add to that consideration for increased power consumption. That's why I burn DVDs with an external drive.

I burn DVDs on my lappy, but Toshiba specifically states (in the manual) to use wall power when watching/burning DVDs.

The larger problem is, ppl don't RTFM...

Expect for MBP you won't need battery to watch movie...You wouldn't need a power to watch movie in the airplane?

 

[AmigaMan]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: corkyg
All true - and add to that consideration for increased power consumption. That's why I burn DVDs with an external drive.

I burn DVDs on my lappy, but Toshiba specifically states (in the manual) to use wall power when watching/burning DVDs.

The larger problem is, ppl don't RTFM...

that's lame, why bother putting in a DVD if you can't use it when you're mobile?

 

[corkyg]

And sometimes, the tray is simply inconvenient - not much room for it to pop out on some airline trays. And, a tray requires three actions to use - open, insert the disk and press it down on the hub, and then close. A slot requires one action. Insert. My desktops both have slotters as do my cars. Only the laptops have trays in my stable.

If I had the choice to choose - it would always be slot feed.

There is a big disadvantage for aslot - that is, it can't load mini-discs.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: corkyg
And sometimes, the tray is simply inconvenient - not much room for it to pop out on some airline trays. And, a tray requires three actions to use - open, insert the disk and press it down on the hub, and then close. A slot requires one action. Insert. My desktops both have slotters as do my cars. Only the laptops have trays in my stable.

If I had the choice to choose - it would always be slot feed.

There is a big disadvantage for aslot - that is, it can't load mini-discs.

The last time I saw a mini disc was when I used to put my cartography and GIS projects on them to turn in. It made me feel like a spy. And there are apparently adapters anyway