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Editorial: Apple's officially over the optical drive, for better or worse
I don't like it. Not one iota. But frankly, it doesn't much matter -- Apple's officially done with the optical drive, and there's no evidence more strikingly clear than the mid 2011 refresh of its Mac mini. Last year, that bantam box arrived with a $699 price tag, pep in its step and a personality that could charm even the most hardened desktop owner. This year, a $599 model showed up on my doorstep promising the same, but instead it delivered a noticeable drop in actual functionality. Pundits have argued that you could tether a USB SuperDrive to the new mini and save $20 in the process compared to last year's rig, but does relying on a cabled accessory go hand-in-hand with beauty and simplicity? No, and I've every reason to believe that Apple would agree. Despite the obvious -- that consumers would buy a mini to reduce the sheer burden of operating a convoluted desktop setup -- Apple's gone and yanked what has become a staple in both Macs and PCs alike. For years, ODDs have been standard fare, spinning CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs (however briefly) and Blu-ray Discs, not to mention a few other formats that didn't do much to deserve a mention. Compared to most everything else in the technology universe, the tried-and-true optical drive has managed to hang around well beyond what it's creator likely had in mind, but it's pretty obvious that 2011 is to the ODD what 1998 was to the floppy drive. At least in the mind of one Steven P. Jobs.
Samsung slot-loading DVD burner supports 8cm discs
A huge problem with the all those sweet DVD camcorders is that any machine with a slot-loading DVD drive (cough, Apple) totally chokes on 8-centimeter discs. Well, Samsung's got you covered with its new SE-T084L external burner, which it's touting as the world's only slot-loader to accept the format in addition to standard 12-centimeter discs. The bus-powered USB 2.0 burner features a seek time of 130 milliseconds, and record speeds of 8X DVD±R, 6X DVD+R DL, 4X DVD-R DL, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-RW, and 5X DVD-RAM. For some reason, Sammy only announced this thing today, but they've been shipping since April for $150 -- maybe it wanted us to focus on those snazzy Blu-Ray burners instead?
FastMac debuts Blu-ray Drive for your fast (or slow) Mac
Have $800 burning a hole in your pocket and a strange urge to create Blu-ray discs with your slot-loading Mac? All four of you might dig FastMac's new Blu-ray Drive upgrade, which can fit in a wide range of Macs, including the 17-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini and Intel iMac. Apparently no love for the MacBook or 15-inch MBP, but the iBook G4 can handle it -- though it's hard to fathom stuffing one of these drives inside that oh-so-consumery laptop. The drive is rated at 8x DVD±RW and 1x BD-RW. You can write to 50GB dual-layer discs, and boot to the drive with OS X. FastMac calls the drive "Plug & Play," but the "plugging" end of that equation is going to take some adventurous exploits inside your Mac, by you, your hacker nephew or a trained computer repair guy. If you think you can stomach it, the drive is available now.[Via MacMinute]
Hitachi's Prius One type S all-in-one PC
Yep, another all-in-one PC in white for ya here. This time, it's Hitachi's Prius One Type S (AW31S1R) PC which brings a 1.6GHz Celeron M 380 processor, a 17-inch LCD capable of 1280 x 1024 pixels, a maximum of 2GB RAM, Intel 910GML Express graphics, up to 320GB of disk, and a front-mounted slot-loading dual-layer DVD writer which makes good use of that 7.8-inch of depth. You also get 5 x USB 2.0 ports, a multi-format memory card slot, Firewire, modem, and outs for D-Sub 15 and S/PDIF. Yours for a steep, estimated starting price of ¥160,000 (or about $1,389) when these drop July 15th in Japan.[Via Impress]
