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Macbook External DVD R/RW. Cheapest route?

Jschultz

Jschultz

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 14, 2005
880
13
Chicago, IL
I see that the actual Superdrive is $170 or so, but that's too much.

Are there any alternatives that are cheap? I wish I had bought a superdrive equipped macbook now. Grr.
 
Would the MacBook Air SuperDrive not work on our macbooks???? Cause for $99 it seems like it'd be the most logical usb route to go.
 
You know that for a fact or is that what you have heard because its just usb2.0, simple protocal and SHOULD be nothing to it. Where's the compatibility issue lie??
 
Jschultz said:
Are they all supposed to work with OSX? We have some at work, but they're made for Windows.
Click to expand...

Have you tried them with your Macbook? Most (almost all) external drives are Win/OS X compatible. You can check the ones on Newegg individually to confirm, but I'd imagine they'd all be fine with OS X--particularly the ones with FW support.
 
I have not tried them, but they all have the Vista logo on the back of the box, or state something like "engineered for Vista".

That sort of thing makes me wonder, you know?
 
I would say that your safe going with any external burner. Burners are like External USB drives. Most <i>say</i> that they are compatible with Windows or are made <b>for</b> Windows. This does not exclude Macs. Mine said that it was not made for Mac but it works like a charm. :) All in all anything will work for what you need pretty much.
 
Bonsai1214 said:
why doesn't the macbook air drive with any computer? its a usb device, and i'm willing to bet drivers can be found online somewhere
Click to expand...

I do believe it is because it requires more power then a normal usb2.0 port can provide.

I think its normal USB2.0 = .5wat while apples port on the MBA is 1.5wat but i could be wrong, this is just off the top of my head of things that i can remember.
 
Jschultz said:
I have not tried them, but they all have the Vista logo on the back of the box, or state something like "engineered for Vista".

That sort of thing makes me wonder, you know?
Click to expand...

Two things to remember:

1) there are more windoze users so need to let them know explicitly that this unit will work for them
2) Burners often come bundled with software that is only Win compatible and to the manufacturer this means 'It is only compatible with Windows' because often they will assume (and perhaps rightly) that some users won't have any idea what they're doing unless they are given everything in one box and spoon-fed it.

I got a Sony Burner that stated it was WINDOWS ONLY! and works fine with Toast titanium on my Powerbook.
 
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