One of the more notable moments at CES this year for me wasn't a flashy new notebook announcement or a weird concept device demonstration. It was a quiet reveal at the Acer/Gateway suite of the upcoming Gateway EC14D, an 11.6-inch dual-core ULV mininotebook that has a DVD drive. It's a big deal, for several reasons. Many readers have written in regarding laptop purchases they'd like to make, and it seems that the capability to play DVDs still ranks high on many lists. A laptop is often an entertainment purchase, and DVDs are still more widespread than any other video medium. On ultraportable devices such as Netbooks, DVD drives have been left off, mainly because of size and cost concerns. And, to those who value saving some money and having a smaller laptop, it's worth the compromise.
However, omitting DVD drives in larger "thin-and-light" machines may be a bit of a mistake. First off, nobody technically needs a thinner laptop. More compact is always nice, but cosmetics are secondary to value for a lot of people. Regardless, a trend seems to have been emerging in recent months: while early thin-and-lights such as the MSI Wind and MacBook Air were truly too thin for an optical drive, recent entries to the midrange category are getting a little bulkier, and clearly could have made room for one. Read more...
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