Long flight? Get a laptop DVD drive

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It’s hard to imagine a time when laptops didn’t all have a laptop DVD drive. Well, you’d be amazed to know that some right now don’t even come with them. While they’ve become standard on just about every laptop type being produced here in 2009, up until a couple years ago there were laptops that were still coming with a straight CD-ROM drive. How did they live?! But seriously, there are many people out there right now who don’t have DVD capability on their laptops. They can’t watch DVDs, and certainly can’t burn them. If you’re one of these people, have no fear. There is something you can do about it. You can actually buy laptop DVD drives these days and very easily retrofit your laptop to work with them.

There are two types of these drives: internal and external. Frankly, I think you should stick with the external DVD drives if you’re not familiar with the internal workings of how laptops operate. Few really are, and even those who do know what they’re doing have to be careful not to accidentally break some of the fragile components while doing their work. If you do want to go internal, take it to a professional. Seriously.

Now, an external laptop CD DVD drive is going to be your best bet for ease of installation, but not necessarily cost. While all you have to do when installing your external drive is just plug it in and perhaps install a driver or two, you’re going to pay for that convenience one way or another. DVD drive companies know that people are going to go for the easiest solution, so right off the bat the prices are going to be higher. Don’t worry, though. We’re not talking about hundreds of dollars here. There are external laptop DVD drives available for $50-$100, though the lower priced models are going to skip around quite a bit more and make your life a little annoying. But hey, if you’re on a budget there are worse things you can do.

An internal laptop DVD RW drive is going to be a little bit cheaper (no interface with USB needed), but you’re also going to pay for that lower price later on when it comes time for installation. With an internal drive you’re going to certainly need to take apart your laptop, which is never fun. Again, should you decide to do this, take it to a professional first. If you end up doing it yourself, you need to be okay with the idea that it’s possible to break your laptop. Backup all your data before you start installing your new DVD drive for your laptop.