Serious question time - how many times did you use a dvd drive in the past 3 months?
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Macbook Pro Retina no CD/DVD Drive?
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Serious question time - how many times did you use a dvd drive in the past 3 months?
I dont know exactly how many times but i've used it enough to "want" one. I like it for times when i have my neices and im driving they can grab their blu-ray disc from the backseat pop a blu-ray in a watch whatever it is they want. I have a dvd player in my indash radio but they cant really see it from the back seat, its just more of a convience thing
You could buy an external USB drive for $30,
that is insane how apple is charging $80 for such a basic product.
That is why one of the reasons I did not get a retina MacBook, but to this day I have not even used the CD drive once. there was no need to
It's like this. How many times have you used your CD drive in the last year?
I went to a MBA 2 years ago and have needed a drive maybe 3 times in that 2 years. Why carry around a piece of hardware that you rarely need just "incase" it makes more sense to drop it and only take it out when you need it.
Besides, im sure you were drawn to the rmbp in part by how thin it is. IF they did not drop that drive there is no way they could have made it that thin.
Understand that this may be a feature that YOU find still important and needed, but the majority of consumers in this space dont see it that way. So dont fault Apple, realize you are the minority and deal with that.
Do you want one enough to have it take up a quarter of the computer's interior? Meaning that Apple would have to make other sacrifices in order to fit it in there, such as a worse battery life and a thicker form factor?
One of the reasons why optical drives are being phased out is because of the popularity of USB flash drives. They are much faster, smaller, cheaper and more convenient. I occasionally use my optical drive if I buy a game which I have to download and I decide to put it on DVD or I want to watch a movie from a DVD.
Let's see...
Thinner computer, no moving parts to break, option to add dirt cheap USB drive if needed...
or
Thicker computer, more inclined to malfunction, saddled with an unremovable, dying technology...
I know which I'd choose. If you're that worried about not having a disc drive, you can buy an external USB powered Blu-Ray drive for about $40. Compared to a $2,000-3,000 computer, that seems like a very small hassle. Whatever bulk and weight you add to your bag by carrying a small disc drive will be mitigated by the thinner body and lighter unibody. I'm really not sure what the problem is here...
It's not like any Mac ever came with a built-in Blu-Ray drive either...
Thinner computer, no moving parts to break, option to add dirt cheap USB drive if needed...
or
Thicker computer, more inclined to malfunction, saddled with an unremovable, dying technology...
I know which I'd choose. If you're that worried about not having a disc drive, you can buy an external USB powered Blu-Ray drive for about $40. Compared to a $2,000-3,000 computer, that seems like a very small hassle. Whatever bulk and weight you add to your bag by carrying a small disc drive will be mitigated by the thinner body and lighter unibody. I'm really not sure what the problem is here...
It's not like any Mac ever came with a built-in Blu-Ray drive either...
i do use the cd/dvd drive often mostly for watching movies or transferring my short film projects onto it. i still went ahead and brought a retina. Only issue the darn usb super drive is outta stock.
My friends/ mates at university have lenovos(provided by institute) with cd drives and from the day they got it till now they've not even popped open the cd tray.
If you dont mind having the cd drive external then retina if its an issue then the classic. I guess the super drive which comes inbuilt in the mac costs the same if not more then the external one.
My friends/ mates at university have lenovos(provided by institute) with cd drives and from the day they got it till now they've not even popped open the cd tray.
If you dont mind having the cd drive external then retina if its an issue then the classic. I guess the super drive which comes inbuilt in the mac costs the same if not more then the external one.
NSA's Utah datacenter is designed to store 5 zettabytes. Meanwhile, optical discs can store up to 1 petabyte...
Right.
1PB-capacity optical discs aren't going to be on sale at Fry's (to name just one shop) any time soon, and neither are the drives that can read/write them. By the time they arrive, they are barely adequate for our needs.
I still need an optical drive - mostly for ripping my CD's, DVD's and Blu-Rays. I really don't need it when I'm traveling. Anything I want to watch or listen to will be on my SSD, my iPhone, or a small 2TB external HDD with my full media library.
With Remote Disc, Apple allows you to use an existing optical drive in another computer (Mac or PC). If that doesn't work for you, you can buy an external Blu-Ray drive for less than $100 which gives you much better functionality than the DVD drive that you're missing in the laptop.
With Remote Disc, Apple allows you to use an existing optical drive in another computer (Mac or PC). If that doesn't work for you, you can buy an external Blu-Ray drive for less than $100 which gives you much better functionality than the DVD drive that you're missing in the laptop.
And before anyone says anything, yes I know this ages old!
But I too think it's bloody stupid thing to do ie do away with cd and dvd drives......what about folk like me (and probably the op too) who've got a lot of cd's ect and want to play them, some might have photos too....
I remember being somewhat distraught over how when the retina machines originally came out that the only machines they had in their selection with an optical drive were the non-retina machines. It felt as if they were intentionally trying to push people who wanted a built in optical drive to buy a machine without one. I even had the hunch that they were soon going to discintinue the 15" non-retina Pro (which still had an optical disc drive) and I was absolutely correct when they dropped it at the next refresh.
However I came to realize that it's been years since the last time I used the optical drive on my machine on the road and that third party drives, that work just as well as the overpriced official Apple one, don't cost more than $20.
Thus the next machine I plan on buying will not have an optical drive and I'm actually completely fine with it.
However I came to realize that it's been years since the last time I used the optical drive on my machine on the road and that third party drives, that work just as well as the overpriced official Apple one, don't cost more than $20.
Thus the next machine I plan on buying will not have an optical drive and I'm actually completely fine with it.
Then buy an external drive. Third party ones cost practically peanuts.
No, I have to agree with Apple on this. Prior to my 2012 rMBP I hardly used any optical disks - the only time was to install programs - now everything is downloaded.
The writing was on the wall years ago, and even when this thread was made last year it was evident that the optical drive is but a dinosaur - more so today in 2014. While there are pockets of people still wanting/needing them, their numbers are quickly shrinking imo.
The only option is to buy an external drive - you get the best of both worlds at that point.
Get an <$100 external blu-ray burner. It's much easier to replace an external than an internal. Optical drives seem to be one of first things to likely malfunction and go bad. I've had more optical drives go bad than hard drives, even though I've had around 5-10 times more hard drives.
Optical media is the bane of technology right now. Even if you "absolutely" need it for music, video, photos, etc., the access/read/write speed of the media is just abysmal, to say nothing of capacity limitations (even blu-ray is unimpressive) and storage requirements (spindles, cases, briefcases?!)
To paint with a broad brush - if you really need optical media, you don't really need a MBP.
To paint with a broad brush - if you really need optical media, you don't really need a MBP.
I think if you have good fast internet then you can digitally download programs and games so a cd drive isn't really needed. I sort of have slow internet so I might be buying a cd drive, but I think its a matter of choice really.