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Mba 13", Do you miss having a DVD drive?

L

lolwut89

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 13, 2012
50
0
My one question to you all is, do you miss having a DVD drive?

Have you found it to be inconvenient? Like, let's say did you have that ONE moment where you cursed and could have used an optical drive integrated on the laptop?

I'm excited to pick up my MBA 13" tomorrow from the Apple Store, but I'm still on the fence about getting a computer that has no optical drive. My co worker who is an Apple devout asked me, "When was the last time you used a DVD for a computer other than to install games?"

Which he raised a good point. Other than reinstalling Windows 7 on my desktop, I've never needed to use DVD-ROMs. All my games are on Steam so I download them.

But still, I'm curious if you had that one moment where you wished you had one.

Also, what's it like? Is it a laptop where you truly save on the cloud? I've only toyed with one and it was amazing. Thin and light. My shoulder can't handle 5.4 pounds + books, which was the weight of my laptop that I carried around during undergrad. I'm sure a 2.9 pound laptop will be quite nicer :apple: and I'm sure having tethering with Verizon will help out the "do anything where you go" experience
 
Ive owned a macbook air for 4 months after being a windows user for 19 years.

I can honestly say no. I use to make CDs all the time because I had no way to play iTunes in my car, but now through a a blutooth speaker I can play my iTunes through my car speakers.

Being a casual gamer though has been kind of annoying though. If you are a hardcore gamer then I recommend buying the CD drive, but since I don't game very often it doesn't bug me. But there is always steam
 
Thanks, that's what I thought. All I really care about is being able to play Starcraft II, and from what I've seen it will run it reasonably well. I will go to graduate school in a year and a half and I'm sure this laptop will be a fine companion.

I will throw in a bluetooth stereo deck for my car soon. I'm tired of buying new FM transmitters that break and now that I use android phones which don't have FM transmitters, I'm sure it'll do quite nicely.
 
I bought a SuperDrive with my 13" MBA because I was worried about the lack of an optical drive. I've used it twice since I bought it.

Still, if you're worried about this, you can buy USB external drives from Newegg for about 30 bucks.
 
not one bit

My one question to you all is, do you miss having a DVD drive?

Had an MBA since 1st model--on my 3rd one now, love it. Never missed the optical drive once.

Full disclosure: I do have a mini to hold my music and photos, connected to my stereo and HDTV. Recommend that setup if you enjoy music, have an old (but good) 20th century stereo. Especially if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch. It's fun to use 21st century tech so smoothly with not-even-late 20th century stereo system.

Even so, except for putting my music on the Mini, I never need the optical drive.
 
I'd just like to weigh in here. I bought a MBP in august 2010 and only used the optical drive to install windows 7 which could have been done with a USB. I've never used the optical drive since.
 
Thanks for your replies guys ;) can't wait to test this bad boy out tomorrow! Gonna go pick it up and then have lunch near the area... I hope it's willing to play nice with a Galaxy Nexus for tethering :D
 
I actually have the Super Drive for my Air and have used it a sum total of 3 times and that was only when I got Redbox on the road.

You will not miss it!
 
Do you guys think the 13" is a definite good choice over the 11"? I looked at the specs, and wanted 4 gigs of RAM as well as a bigger SSD. I figured an extra $100 wouldn't hurt for a bigger screen + bigger battery life.
 
In the last year or so, I needed the CD drive in my MBP a few times:

- sys admin had to install printer driver on my laptop so I can print at work
- software bought in university store delivered by CD only
- burned a compilation CD for my car which only has a CD player

For the first two it would have been annoying to wait until I get home, or to bring in my external drive the next day.

I'm happy that the MBP still has a disc drive. But if they remove it at some point it won't be a deal breaker for me.
 
So rarely!

I only needed it twice to install software (Office 2008 and Photoshop CS5). In this case, the remote disk works very well, provided you have an extra computer or can borrow one.

To me, the optical drive is a total waste of valuable labtop space. Even if I bought a MBP, I would definitely replace it with an aftermarket SSD.
 
The only thing I miss is making CD's for my car. But I still have my VAIO for that, it's literally the only reason I use my VAIO these days. Games and everything else are available online, if you don't already have an external HD, I recommend getting one.
Apart from that, I am excited for you. You will love the MacBook Air, I am sure. Best computer I have ever used.
 
I had a superdrive in my late 17" MacBook Pro that I only used once to burn a CD in my friends car that had no MP3 player input, and I've yet to use it on my new iMac. So basically I've only needed an optical drive once in three years, and I didn't really need it. I use external HDDs for storage and everything else is in the cloud.
 
Yes I miss it, but for only one reason: Digital Copy of a movie that comes with the Blu-ray/DVD combo. I can't put the Digital Copy disc in my Remote Disc and have it transfer to iTunes because neither can open it.
 
I bought the external superdrive when I got the original MBA. Only time I've ever used it was to install Windows on Bootcamp, and the same again when I upgraded to a 2010 MBA.
 
I have a Super Drive for when I really need it, but I SELDOM need it. I don't miss the thing at all.
 
GKDAIR said:
Ive owned a macbook air for 4 months after being a windows user for 19 years.

I can honestly say no. I use to make CDs all the time because I had no way to play iTunes in my car, but now through a a blutooth speaker I can play my iTunes through my car speakers.

Being a casual gamer though has been kind of annoying though. If you are a hardcore gamer then I recommend buying the CD drive, but since I don't game very often it doesn't bug me. But there is always steam
Click to expand...

No need to have the optical drive for gaming. There is probably not a single game out there worth buying that isn't available on Steam and/or available from the manufacturer's website as a direct download (Blizzard games).
 
I don't miss it in the least, but I haven't used optical media in years. Music is on iTunes Match, Movies are on a portable hard drive, apps are downloadable, games are on steam. I feel no need whatsoever to use an optical drive.

I needed one once to install iWeb (why isn't it in the app store????) so I used shared drive on my Mac Pro. But I don't want the extra bulk on the unit for something I've used once since owning it!

Oh and as for installing operating systems. Lion is disc less. So make sure you have a time machine backup and you can reinstall from that even if your main drive dies or is replaced. And installing windows only needs an external drive or flash drive. I have an external drive that is a bootable windows install disk and has all of my core windows installers and my steam backups.
 
eric/ said:
No need to have the optical drive for gaming. There is probably not a single game out there worth buying that isn't available on Steam and/or available from the manufacturer's website as a direct download (Blizzard games).
Click to expand...

Wrong :( The latest version of X-Plane (10) that came out last month still requires the same old DVD based copy protection. Of course it's not strictly a 'game' but it kind of is.

It's ridiculous but they still require it. I'll have to get a drive to run it on my mini :(
 
GekkePrutser said:
Wrong :( The latest version of X-Plane (10) that came out last month still requires the same old DVD based copy protection. Of course it's not strictly a 'game' but it kind of is.

It's ridiculous but they still require it. I'll have to get a drive to run it on my mini :(
Click to expand...

Any application that requires a disk is just asking to be cracked.
 
GekkePrutser said:
Wrong :( The latest version of X-Plane (10) that came out last month still requires the same old DVD based copy protection. Of course it's not strictly a 'game' but it kind of is.

It's ridiculous but they still require it. I'll have to get a drive to run it on my mini :(
Click to expand...

And I think you and maybe two other people probably play that game. Not saying it's good or bad, but for everybody else Steam/Blizzard will completely satisfy their gaming requirement. Thus, no DVD drive is needed.
 
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