Panasonic has a 7-millimeter thick DVD burner

If you were wondering who's responsible for the super-slim burner that allows Toshiba's waifish Portege R500 sub-notebook to sport an optical drive in such a small enclosure -- and who wasn't, really? -- it seems that Akihabara News has solved this non-mystery by outing Panasonic's seven-millimeter thick DVD writer as the guilty party. At only 99 grams heavy as well, the unnamed spinner reportedly stomps all over the previous record holder for slimmest notebook drive, which measured a relatively-bloated 9.5 millimeters from top to bottom. You'll probably be seeing this model all over the place soon enough; in fact, we wouldn't be surprised (well, maybe we would) if Samsung stuffs one into the first revision of the Q1 Ultra. or Mr. Hawkins employs it to add some value to the critically-panned Foleo.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 6th 2007 12:54PM]

If you didn't need the tray or the shell of the drive, the drive would be much lighter. That's what Panasonic does with its "Let's note" series.

For example, the DVD writer in Y5 series weighs only 59.5g. Picture here:
http://ad.impress.co.jp/special/letsnote0604_3/p04.htm

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 6th 2007 12:54PM]

you know what i'm thinking-- a laptop with dual drives WOOT.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 6th 2007 1:28PM]

Two drives on a laptop? Eh it's kinda overkill don't you think? I'd want that extra space to stick another hard drive in there someplace.

[tiuk Posted Jun 6th 2007 1:24PM]

That's damn impressive.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 6th 2007 1:37PM]

yeah that would be pretty awesome having 2 hd's w/o leaving out the optical drive

[JKoether Posted Jun 6th 2007 3:13PM]

7mmm. hmmm... *reaches for calipers*
Holy Shit. that is really thin.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 6th 2007 4:28PM]

> 7mmm. hmmm... *reaches for calipers*
> Holy Shit. that is really thin.

Yeah, the United States is still the resistant leader against the global standard...

[ethana2 Posted Jun 6th 2007 4:41PM]

Indeed. I'm one of the few Americans who thinks in metric. AS has no point and it's time it died.

"Hey, look! The new Intel processor's transistors are (insert AS measurement here, *wince*).
I don't know why people here cling to it. Defiance? Habit? Maybe they're just idiots.

7mm? Holds up finger and thumb ~7mm apart. Wow! That IS thin! Kudos to the team that designed that one! What's this I hear of tray-less, case-less, even thinner ones?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 8th 2007 3:56AM]

This is amazing, 11" ultraportables will not need to go without optical drives if these become widely available.

Too bad Panasonic is also the maker which slaps their drives with an unbreakable DVD region coding lock.