Dell’s been firmly in the Blu-ray camp since day one (though I’m never going to stop asking their reps about when they’ll be adding HD DVD) and is finally making moves to show its support for the format by adding a mobile optical drive to its XPS M1710 gaming/multimedia notebook line. And it’s not just a player. The drive has full read/write abilities for CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs.
If you’ve never seen full HD content on a 17-inch screen, let me tell you, it’s pretty amazing viewable. Seriously though, if you’re dropping nearly $4,000 (the base config with the drive is $3,699) you might as well get the best, most versatile drive you can. Even if it’s just for the 50GB of storage you can jam on a double-layer disc. Besides, you can always use the DVI out to connect to a larger screen.
Dell XPS M1710 [product site]