Interesting to see that demand for optical drives is increasing, although apparently it’s only in Japan: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/optical-drive-demand-surges-amid-windows-10-retirement-japanese-users-switching-to-windows-11-are-buying-up-blu-ray-drives
Still, hopefully that means Bluray writers stay on the market for a bit longer.
I have a PC USB Blu-ray drive, and bought a backup one last year just in case this one dies.
There are rumors that the last two makers of consumer computer blu-ray drives have ceased production. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the actual reason sales have surged in Japan, as physical media is still quite popular there.
That’s quite possible, unfortunately…
Blue-ray drive? Wild.
Smart. Kids are really hyping physical media again, akin to when 80’s kids brought vinyl back in the 2000’s.
Or the 90’s kids who buy vinyl today
Does it run Linux?
Why wouldn’t it?
unsupported hardware, firmware bugs
Sometimes they use the oddest hardware in such a machine for which only windows drivers exist, at least for the moment. Hardware shops manage to fuck this up especially with wifi cards.
I had the same question
Intel core i3? …
This would make a great Kubuntu 25.10 system.
Do you use Blu-rays tho?
My parents would always say Blu-rays are waste of money and they just rent some ordinary DVD from the store instead.
DVDs are stuck at a low-quality 480p resolution versus 1080p or 2160p, so Blu-Rays are indisputably better.
480p
That sucks. Maybe I wasn’t caring much because I was watching those videos ripped and imported to VLC through iPad (in 2013).
Compression is also a factor, uncompressed (or least a higher bitrate rip) DVD rips don’t really look particularly terrible. Plus, if you’re watching on a phone/tablet or modest sized tv/monitor (32" and under) it really isn’t that big a deal for the most part.
4K Blu-rays look stunning on a good OLED TV. I tend to pick up movies I really loved the visuals of in 4K Blu-ray (Interstellar as an example).
Doesn’t need to be OLED. Just a half decent 4k tv.
I want it.
I guess it’s a little more compact to make it internal, but I’d think that an external USB drive would be a much better option, not compete for space in the laptop. I mean, people can’t be using the thing all the time.
considers
Though there was a point in the past when laptop vendors would design the laptop to support a secondary battery in the optical drive bay if you didn’t want an internal optical drive, and that would be something I’d like. That’s the only way you can exceed the 100Wh maximum on flights, if the battery is a spare removeable, not built-in.
