Shane McGlaun04 July 2009, 8:50 PM
Tiny Pioneer external optical drive is sized like a CD case and weighs half a pound.
I am a fan of the netbook form factor -- at least in 10-inch style. Anything under that is too small for practical use in my book. When I am traveling on business I like to take my netbook, but I quickly realized at CES back in January that the majority of press materials still come on CD or DVD. That meant I couldn't get to the photos with my MSI Wind netbook.
The lack of an optical drive certainly isn’t limited to the Wind; even new netbooks with high-end hardware like the
NVIDIA Ion platform still lack an optical drive. Pioneer Electronics feels the pain of the netbook or ultraportable user who lacks an optical drive and has announced its new (and tiny)
DVR-XD09 external optical drive -- it's the Discman of CD-ROMs.
The XD09 looks more like a CD case than an optical drive and is only eight ounces in weight. You would barely notice that in your notebook bag or briefcase. The drive connects to your netbook or notebook via USB and burns just about every CD and DVD format that is available, except for possibly some esoteric formats that nobody cares about anyway like DVD-RAM. The drive will ship in August for $US79.99 ($AUD95).