No CD/DVD drives on newer laptops?

VeGGie-STyLe

Hello! I am looking at buying a new laptop and it seems as though they are stopping the inclusion of a CD/DVD drive.

I am not as technologically advanced as maybe I ought to be these days, so is there a reason that a lot of them don't have them anymore?

Thanks

notanewuser

A) so that they can sell you a peripheral one
because a laptop isn't designed to be your only computer, merely a portable one
C) because so much is now downloadable instead

hop3y

I use one of these.

Tropez

Because it is an extra construction expense that for quite a substantial number of people serves no real purpose now so the manufacturers eliminate them to save money (mostly for themselves mind). In some cases they can put the saved space to better use by adding extra hard drives or lowering the profile of the laptop.

Both my laptops have optical drives and I don't believe I've ever used them. I didn't put an optical drive into my current desktop PC. I borrowed a friend's external drive to load Windows and since then I've not needed an optical drive.

Almost all software is now downloadable and media is streamable.

But if you do need an optical drive, you can pick up an external USB one pretty cheap nowadays.

securityguy

Hot news! Laptops don't have floppy drives any more either. Or parallel ports. Or RS232 ports. Or (increasingly) ethernet ports. Why carry around weight and complexity you're not going to use? if you need a DVD drive (why?) then a USB one is about twenty quid. If you don't, you're saving the weight, space and complexity.

securityguy

I think I'm right in saying that there are now no Apple machines with builtin DVD drives, laptop or desktop, other than the legacy 13" Pro which is not long for this earth.

People were equally aghast when Apple stopped fitting floppy drives, and I recall endless droning on by people who claimed they would be unable to work without one. Whatever happened to them?

Uxb

Well, you know how it is..some people just love to moan and sadly the internet now gives them a forum to express their moans in public while in previous generations the would be sat in a corner of a pub spouting a load of rubbish and ignored by everyone.

I can remember when bank cards and ATM with PIN's came in and we had the same predictions of armageddon and chaos then with letters of outrage to the papers.

Jivesinger

It depends what you want to do with them. If you want to transfer data or backup some photos, burning a DVD is still cheaper than buying a USB stick, and also easier to label and store. For me, burning a CD is also the best way to play music in my (older) car.

I believe that updates to software have also made it easier to drop DVD drives. For instance Windows 8 lets you create a System Recovery USB. But for Windows 7, I think the native OS still only lets you create a CD/DVD. I would want to carefully check out the ability of a USB-connected DVD drive to boot the computer in that scenario.

But for many people, a built-in DVD drive is just extra weight and makes the laptop bigger to carry around.

System

I never used the one on my laptop so replaced it with an additional HDD.

I have an external one if needed but most of what I use is either downloaded, or, if I have it on CD then I will either put it on a USB stick using my desktop or copy it to my networked storage to use on any of my machines.

almillar

There are stacks of laptops with DVD drives still. If you use optical media a lot, that's what to go for. But you can save a lot of weight and size (well size anyway) by removing it - think about how often you actually use one. You can have a USB powered DVD burner for under £20 so that would do nicely, and I hardly think that's the manufacturers trying to make more money out of you!
Whatever you decide on, you'll not be stuck!

VeGGie-STyLe

Thank you for your replies! Wasn't expecting so many so quickly

I've rarely used the CD drive on the laptop I have at the moment.... only used it to install software, occassionally play a CD or DVD..... so maybe if I was to get myself more up-to-date with how things are done these days, I wouldn't need one anyway?!