While I wouldn’t say the lack of an optical disc drive is necessarily a defining feature of a netbook, the truth is that most 10 inch and smaller laptops lack disc drives because there’s just not much room for them. This also helps keep the price down, and cuts back on the number of moving parts that can break, so all in all, I’m pretty happy with the current state of affairs. But sometimes you still need a disc drive to install software, copy data, or view media.
There are a number of USB DVD drives out there, but the new Lite-On eTAU108 is a pretty slick looking one that would go great next to most netbooks. The slim DVD burner is top-loading, which means there’s no slide-out tray. It can be powered by a USB port, which means fewer cables to carry around. And it weighs less than 0.8 pounds.
The eTAU108 runs about 45 Euros or $64 US. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Lite-On is selling the same disc drive as the eTAU208 in the US. I haven’t seen a US price for this model yet though.
via Netbook News.de
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