UpGradeing Laptop Drive Question...

[Super Warrior]

Supe Warrior OTOH you are talking a closed box Dell bottom end against a Thinkpad.

Say that again? Not understanding you quite...

And yeah as far as laptopcloseout, i've seen Dell Laptops w/ 1.2Ghz P-3 and 40GB HDD for about $380.

Whereas there seem to be plenty of lower end Laptops with only stuff like a 800Mhz P-3 and 20GB HDD for like $400+. Laptopcloseout.com is way overpriced.

[ROF]

Supe Warrior OTOH you are talking a closed box Dell bottom end against a Thinkpad.

Exactly. I'd take the thinkpad over the Dell anyday of the week. It's money well spent. I can throw my thinkpad across the room hoping to hit the couch and have it bounce off the couch and fall to the floor. Try that with a Dell and you'd be lucky if you only ended up with 20 dead pixels. Quality construction compared to overpriced Dell branded stuff is worth the extra few bucks.

If you can lightly touch the backside of the LCD screen and see your finger imprint illuminate across the panel you know you are the proud owner of a Dell laptop. and I won't even begin to talk proprietary equipment under the hood.

[ROF]

Super[/url] Warrior]

And yeah as far as laptopcloseout, i've seen Dell Laptops w/ 1.2Ghz P-3 and 40GB HDD for about $380.

Links please?

[Super Warrior]

Supe Warrior OTOH you are talking a closed box Dell bottom end against a Thinkpad.

Exactly. I'd take the thinkpad over the Dell anyday of the week. It's money well spent. I can throw my thinkpad across the room hoping to hit the couch and have it bounce off the couch and fall to the floor. Try that with a Dell and you'd be lucky if you only ended up with 20 dead pixels. Quality construction compared to overpriced Dell branded stuff is worth the extra few bucks.

If you can lightly touch the backside of the LCD screen and see your finger imprint illuminate across the panel you know you are the proud owner of a Dell laptop. and I won't even begin to talk proprietary equipment under the hood.

Not argueing the quality of Dell Vs IBM, however i will say: Anyone who throws their notebook around like that,even if they are sure it'll land on a soft spot like a sofa, is a complete moron.

[Super Warrior]

Super[/url] Warrior]

And yeah as far as laptopcloseout, i've seen Dell Laptops w/ 1.2Ghz P-3 and 40GB HDD for about $380.

Links please?

discountpc.com- Had some nice looking Dell Latitude C400 laptops like that. $390+$30(shipping).

Anyway to hell with that. I just ordered a brand NEW Dell Inspiron B120 Laptop from dell.com for $450 total! All those used,older laptops i've been looking at for the past few days on sites like e-bay ranged from around $375-$395 with about $35 shipping.The total price of which would have only been about $20-$40 cheaper than the brand new laptop i just ordered.

The main thing that swayed my decision was Dell had both an *instant* $100 off normal price offer,not the Mail-in rebate crap. Plus *FREE* shipping,which is another $50 saved. Thats $150 off usual cost,for a total of $450.

This was it,their cheapest laptop model:

Dell Inspiron B120
1.4Ghz Celeron-M w/1MB L2 cache
40GB HDD
DVD/CD-RW combo drive
256MB Ram
14" screen
56k modem
Etc.

Not bad.Upgrade to a Internal or external DVD-RW drive later on,and it'll be PERFECT

[Super Warrior]

No, not standardized at all. My laptop DVD drive is going out and I would have to buy one from HP for $140US. It's not even a burner. Since I use it mostly at home, I just use a external drive.

If you want a internal DVD drive, buy it with the laptop.

Well it seems you guys were wrong about their being no "standard" Laptop optical drive design, as well as the difficulty in actually finding a compatable drive.

When i was ready to upgrade recently, first I found out the model of my stock DVD/CD-RW laptop drive and looked it up on the net. Then i compared its shape/configuration/connections/etc with that of other Slim laptop drives around to see what might work. Most slim laptop drives i've seen on various sites look the SAME.

Anyhow, i just ordered/received a Pioneer Laptop burner from newegg.com. It fit inside and worked perfectly with my Dell Inspiron B120. Woohoo! Only problem was the faceplate bezel was too small and it looked really out of place. But i was able to easily remove the bezal from the stock drive and put it on the pioneer, which luckily fit perfect and looks great. The original pioneer bezal also worked fine to replace the one i took from the other drive.

[TaoTeWingChun]

Super[/url] Warrior]I'm currently in the process of trying to sell my desktop setup and get a laptop. I see some nice deals on the net for laptops,one of which is great but has no DVD drive. One of the things i'd be looking to do with a laptop is play DVDs.

I've no prior experience upgradeing laptops/notebooks.My question is simple: Are Laptop CD/DVD drive designs pretty much standardized like desktop drives are, and any laptop drive can fit into any laptop drive bay? Also is it as easy to put in the drives like desktops are too?

Sorry to come to this party a little late - but have you had a look at the following site:

http://www.ultradrives.com/index.php

They sell slim line drives for almost every manufacturer out there. I know I replaced an HP Pavilion laptop which only came with a CD-ROM with an LG GMA-4080N 8X DVD±RW double layer drive for a customer's machine, and boy did it make them very happy!

Believe it or not, the only thing I needed to do was to verify the bezel from the CD-ROM would fit onto the new drive - which was accomplished via telephone ad fax the same day with their wonderful tech support - and the drive was delivered, installed and tested the very next day.

I'm a big believer in these guys and have done several other similar swaps for family & friends, no problem.

Happy Hunting!

TTWC

[TaoTeWingChun]

With a Dell it's slim to no chance of it working if it's not stated to work with that model. They are worse than HP when it comes to standardization even going as far as changing configurations within the same family.

ROF, it's been my experience with the HP Pavilions that the optical drives are attached to a smallish tray, which can easily be removed with the right tools. Once you get that tray off, you will see it is a standard slim-line drive that can be purchased almost anywhere on the web.

I've installed over 25 different DVD writers in the various HP Pavilion series, and they have all been off-the-shelf replacements with no modifications.

Cheers!

TTWC

[TaoTeWingChun]

Oh, BTW - did I tell you that the drive I recently replaced only cost $79.00 at that ultradrives site?

Yeah, I should have mentioned that above.

Cheers!

TTWC

[Super Warrior]

Oh, BTW - did I tell you that the drive I recently replaced only cost $79.00 at that ultradrives site?

Yeah, I should have mentioned that above.

Cheers!

TTWC

This is an old topic in case you have not noticed, but i bumped it to give information on my recent laptop drive upgrade.

Finding a compatable drive for my Dell laptop was nowhere near as difficult as those other members in this topic would have had me believe. And like i said in that earlier post, most drives i've seen have the same connection/shape as mine so there does seem to be a common laptop "Standard" when it comes to Disc drives.

Here is the drive i got from newegg.com BTW, Nice quality Pioneer for $79. Installation was even easier than putting in a desktop drive too.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827129004