HP's
hd100 HD DVD external USB drive is finally shipping and listed on sale at several retailers. Announced last fall, it was scheduled to ship in 2006 but didn't quite make it. We checked with HP when taking a look at a few other proucts (like it's evil twin, the
bd135 Blu-ray burner also pictured above) and found out it is now shipping, a quick search on Froogle shows it can be bought for $449. What does $240 more than the price of an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on that also works on the PC buy you? A drive capable of 2.4x HD DVD / 5x DVD / 14x CD read speeds, USB 2.0 cable, power cord, assorted manuals and support software and a copy of
Cyberlink's PowerDVD HD DVD edition. Unfortunately, at a price that buys two
Microsoft-subsidized Xbox 360 drives and leaves $40 left over to put towards playback software and an HD upgrade we're not in that much of a hurry to add-to-cart, but for an officially supported HD DVD solution on the PC, this is about it.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ben @ Jan 9th 2007 8:48PM
Can you add a bit to this please. Like a DIRECT comparison to the 360 addon. You mention some specs but I don't know the comparable specs of the 360 addon.
Would be great,
Thanks
Dull @ Jan 9th 2007 9:07PM
Does it have LightScribe?
wookiewarrior @ Jan 9th 2007 9:11PM
It's an HD DVD reader. It doesn't support LightScribe.
Faisal @ Jan 9th 2007 10:36PM
this is pretty stupid...if i was gonna go for hd-dvd (i'm for blu-ray) i would buy the 360 hd-dvd add-on...but hey...we've been there b4 (PS3 vs. stand-alone blu-ray player, Xbox 360 w/ HD-DVD add-on vs. standalone HD-DVD player)
tiuk @ Jan 9th 2007 10:40PM
MS must be loving this, I'm sure it will only help sales once people see how much they're saving with the 360 drive.