Just bought new laptop, need DVD-R

[scott015]

hey guys, iv been burning my dvds on my computer here at work and its getting to be a pain because I didnt have a computer at home... well I just bought a new laptop... Its a Dell Inspiron 8100. Has 512mb, PIII 1.0ghz, 30g HD, 64mb Video Card, etc etc... its pretty nice... but doesnt have a dvd-r...

so I wanted to get one for it... can anyone please advise me on what do get... thanks

[Treebeard]

I would get a drive enclosure for $30 and buy a regular IDE dvd burner for $70. This way it is portable and you dont have to spend lots of $$$ on a internal laptop burner.

[Alan69]

Ok, you didn't say what you have in the way of interfaces, but looking up a review I assume you have the mentioned 1394 firewire port. Double check that yours does and get a firewire enclosure, most seem to be happier with that than USB and the price difference shouldn't be much. Then stick about any DVD writer in there.

I'm pretty happy with my Pioneer, but buying a new drive I'd say look for these things: Cheap, dual format, bitsetting for +R, and check the Prodisc threads and make sure it's not a drive that has problems with them. Prodiscs seem to be excellent and well priced but a few certain drives don't appear to like them. Maybe even look for dual layer or upgradable if it's still fairly cheap. Don't want to go too nuts on price, better to wait and buy another drive later once the dual layer is a bit more stable and cost effective. Can't tell you exactly which drives though, not upgrading quite yet so haven't been keeping up..

Alan

[bnbhoha]

Here you go:
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10357255&loc=101&sp=1

Panasonic external usb 2.0 drive that does ram, dvd-r, dvd-rw, cd-r, cd-rw

Features DVD Multi Drive supports reading and writing of DVD-RAM (2X write) , DVD-R (2X write), DVD-RW (1X write), CD-R (16X write) and CD-RW (8X write) media for unmatched flexibility.
USB 2.0 support for high speed data transfer.
Buffer Under Run protection provided by SmoothLink technology ensures minimal write failures and data integrity.
Supports DVD-Video and can edit DVD recordings made on DVD-RAM media from a Panasonic DVD recorder.
DVD- MovieAlbumSE 3 Software allows you to create or edit DVD-RAM video.
MyDVD 4 for creating your own DVD videos from files exported from DVD MovieAlbum or captured through your PC. WinDVD 4 video playback software for DVD and video CD's. B's REcorder Gold Basic a multifunctional software providing data a video recording capabilities in DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-R, CD-RW and DVD-RAM media.
B's CLIP5 packet writing software for CD-RW and DVD-RW media.
FileSafe backup software utility for hard drive and DVD-RAM backup.
Data applications require a Pentium II 300 Mhz or higer CPU, and 64 MB or more of memory.
Video applications require a Pentium III 450 Mhz CPU or higher, 128 MB of memory or higher.
10 GB of hard disk space is recommended for creating DVD's.