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February 16, 2007

speculation

Your laptop’s optical drive: washed-up has-been or reliable standby?

Posted Feb. 16, ’07, 9:21 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Apple » Speculation

No CDRumors of a Mac sub-notebook have been swirling ever since the demise of the 12” PowerBook G4. One need look no further than the most recent MacUser Podcast, should you be interested to hear our sometimes cogent, often amusing take on the matter.

The whispers have once again taken wing like those flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, but I wanted to take a look at one new addition—or subtraction, actually:

Also setting the new model aside from its existing counterparts, those same people say, may be the conspicuous absence of an optical disc drive. Although Apple’s original plans for the notebook called for its inclusion, reports are that the daunting ergonomics have recently driven company engineers to make a concession, forming yet another parallel between the new notebook and the defunct PowerBook 2400.
No optical drive? thought I. Not bloody likely.

But then I gave the matter some more pondering, specifically vis-a-vis how often I use the optical drive on my MacBook. And you know what? Despite having a CD-ripping, DVD-burning SuperDrive packed in, I mostly use it for listening to CDs that I haven’t ripped to my iPod yet and watching DVDs. Better than 90% of the software I install comes in download form. I mean, don’t get me wrong: the optical drive is convenient for watching DVDs when I’m traveling—if I want to find the most efficient way of killing my battery life.

Apple, of course, famously nixed the floppy drive with the introduction of the first iMac in 1998, and while many criticized the decision at the time, Apple was certainly right that the technology had pretty much outlived its usefulness. Is the same true of the optical drive? Are we moving to a flash drive/networked world? Would you miss a CD/DVD drive in your next notebook, or would you relish its departure for the added space, weight, and battery life that such a change might bring?


12 Comments

Matt Hoult said:

For me it would be a bit of both. If you have ever looked inside a MacBook. iBook or any notebook for that matter you would know that the largest area taken by a single component is almost always the optical drive. The single most insanely loud component of a Mac? You guessed it. Power is a dead cert if we continue the sherade also.

And I never use it, except for watching DVDs... I even chucked all my smaller TVs and DVD players leaving only one communal setup in the lounge. I think I would miss that unless a decent iTunes Movie Store came to the UK.

February 16, 2007 9:55 AM
Matt said:

If you wanted to watch a DVD you could use an external drive and Handbrake(or whatever the new version was called) and just save it to the hard or flash drive this will have.

February 16, 2007 10:02 AM
shadownight said:

Well, eliminating the optical drive across the board would be pure suicide: people still buy CDs, we all want to be able to rip and watch DVDs, we need them for backup purposes and for bringing data to other computers, etc etc.

However, I don't use mine very often, so I think Apple could get away with removing it from a sub-laptop. Since people would buy it as a second computer, they could still use their main computer's optical drive and transfer stuff over the network or with a USB key.

February 16, 2007 10:11 AM
GCarden said:

Were Apple to release a sub-notebook without an optical drive (though I doubt it strongly), I think that they would most likely include a detatchable external optical drive.

I personally almost never use CDs or DVDs on my laptop when I'm on the go. Were Apple to include one, you could keep an external drive at home for the times in which you really did need an optical drive.

But, having said that, I think it's unlikely that Apple would do even that.

February 16, 2007 10:58 AM
Jeremy McCullough said:

I very rarely use my MacBook's optical drive. When I do, it's most certainly not on-the-go.

I'm all for it, as long as Apple includes an external drive with it, and not as a separate purchase. But an option may be nice. I'm not sure.

February 16, 2007 11:50 AM
Chris said:

I have a good feeling Apple will make the leap and not include an optical drive in their sub-notebook. Sure, it'll be a long while before it disappears althogether (we might not use cds as much, but we have blu-ray dvds coming, that could be a huge market). Apple took a huge leap by taking the floppy out of the imac, but we all look back and see that was obvious.

I probably only use my optical for DVDs, but very rarely. If I could get a smaller notebook (though my 12" PB is nice for now) if I had to ditch the optical drive, I would go for it.

Again, no sane person would buy an optical-less computer as their primary computer, but it would make an excellent traveller.

February 16, 2007 11:55 AM
Tony Di Giacomo said:

So if it doesn't have a optical drive how would someone restore the Operating System in the event of something going sour? And what about using Disk Utilty off of the install disc? This would only work as a second (or third) computer.

February 16, 2007 12:07 PM
Axel said:

My dad has a flybook (www.flybook.se) and it dosn't have a optical drive. It is the worlds smallest portable computer.

February 16, 2007 1:39 PM
lar3ry said:

If Apple made a cheap USB CD or DVD reader/writer, then people that need it could have it. I'm not sure that the power from the USB port would be enough to drive one of these (especially a writer), so you'd need some power supply.

February 16, 2007 2:14 PM
BruceS44 said:

Good-bye CD/DVD. As long as it has a USB2.0 or a FireWire port, I can plug in a cheap drive and rip away. For the money I would save on the CD/DVD, I could have more memory, more battery, more disk, and still break even.

February 16, 2007 6:05 PM
joecab said:

No optical drive is fine by me too as long as it means a nice reduction in weight and battery consumption. The only time I use it is for watching movies when I travel, but if there were a legal way I could rip a temporary copy of a DVD or two and dump them after they're watched, I'd really be sold.

February 17, 2007 8:21 AM
The duh/me said:

Has everyone forgotten the Tiger Install DVD? Do you really want download all the next OSX install files? I'll rather live with the extra weight than the wait.

February 19, 2007 12:19 AM

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