LogFAQs > #934432961

adjl posted...

A lot of that is also because you need to buy software to actually be able to use that drive, even once it's there. Most people kind of balk at the idea of spending an extra $50+ to actually be able to use the hardware they've already bought, and while prebuilt computers with BD drives will usually come with the necessary software, it does drive the price up quite considerably over a simple $15 DVD-RW drive. Toss in that it's largely useless for anything other than home theatre PC's (which are a fairly narrow niche that usually sees people building their own machine or ordering a custom one instead of buying a prebuilt), and it's not that surprising that it's unusual to see the drives.

Eh, I can kind of understand that one. Outside of installing old games and watching DVD movies (both of which are fairly niche markets these days thanks to digital distribution services), there really isn't that much use for an optical drive in any computer, let alone a portable one where having one makes the whole thing quite a bit larger. For those that do want a drive, USB optical drives are only like $30, while everyone else gets a slimmer laptop without having to sacrifice anything they really care about. It's not a perfect workaround, but I think the tradeoff is worth it for most people.

"Quite a bit bigger" being like...0.25 inches thicker than if it doesn't have it....
It's not niche for me. And the external USB optical drive might even be acceptable...if these jerks would replace the missing optical drive w/ more USB ports. But they usually don't.