Slot Load Drives. Where the hell are they?

Here's a question for ya.

Why in the hell would ASUS clearly spend tons of time designing Three beautiful new machines, and not finish it off with something like a slot load drive. Its all about the details people.

What do you think?

 

... easy.. price of the slot load drives (for one) ... greater chance of failure in the mechanism (for two) .... and to do it right, you've got to built it in... which limits upgradability.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

what is the cost difference? Im pretty sure that panasonic makes a pretty sweet line of slot drives. do people prefer the tray. after you have paid $2200 for a beautiful V6V what is an extra 20 bucks.

 

Well, it's not just an extra $20... if you look at the cost of the drives, it's more substantial than that.

But in the case of say the V6 -- there are only 2 drives that are even made in that "super slim" format.... a combo drive and a 2x dvd-rw.... thats it.. both in tray format... So it's an impossible task for the V6.. Also, the slot drives weigh more... even if you wouldn't think so, they do.

But aside from price, availability, weight....... I think the durability of them is the biggest question. We've customized some M6's with slot drives they customers have special ordered.. but it's not cost effective for us to do that..... looks cool as anything, but takes a long time to customize the drive covers and superglue it in place and stuff like that.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

I appreciate the feedback, just trying to stir things up a little.

 

Stiring things up doesn't really help much because it's not like your post is going to changes Asus' design habits.... But one thing it does do is make other people say the same thing, and then explaining it over and over gets to be a pain if you know what I mean.

Especailly with say the V6... where a slot drive isn't even possible at this time....... an 8x dvd burner isn't even possible and thats hard enough to explain because people see 8x burners, but there are only a handful of computers that even use the superslim drives to begin with..... two of Asus'.. a few of Sony's.. maybe a couple more at best.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

I am sorry I even mentioned the V6. I merely used it as an example. I guess you can aply it to the W3, W1, W5, , whatever. These new machines just seem to have alot of nice design features, and that is something that asus is pushing on top of performance.
If we didn't care about what the thing looked like, we'd all be looking to get the newest DELL (sorry if I have offended the dell users).
People buy Powerebooks without even knowing what is inside them.(I understand the drives are bult in and such.
I guess what I am saying is that it seems Asus is making a solid effort to make quality design an important part of there product. All i wanted was a little feedback on what people thought about slot load drives.
I didn't mean to get you bent out of shape, Justin.
I would love it if someone other than ProPortable would make a coment here and there. Diversity is a good thing. nothing against proportable.

 

Yeah it would be nice if someone else bothered take some of their time and answer some of these posts, wouldn't it? I was asked here no more than a month ago and I've posted more than I've posted other places in a year.

I'm not bent out of shape here. I'm trying to explain and I understand you. There is a reason I customized a slot drive on my M6 - because it was cool. With most people pay for them? No... when it comes down to failure, what would we have to replace more? Slot drives. But I think the biggest thing is really that slot drives only look good when they are built in and non-replaceable (upgradeable).... So, thats fine for a computer that you'll get 2 years out of and something that you can't upgrade (like a powerbook)...... but I have some Asus systems still running that are going on 4+ years old and if I didn't have the oppurtunity to have all the new notebooks, I'd still be on them. But 4 years ago, the best drive you could get was a cd drive..... a little after that, a dvd drive.... then a combo drive..... then a slot dvd-rw. In 4 years that computer had 5 different drives.

Asus builds for quality, design and performance.... so a lot of that means that are looking to make upgradeable systems that last a long time and still look fresh years down the road. That have had a few prototype notebooks which used slot drives and they design and build powerbooks for apple.......... so maybe they have their reasons since they certain have access to thsoe drives in quantities...

I certainly can't pin it down, but user upgrades probably tops the list above price and durability of the drive. They also don't just stick some normal tray drive in their systems. The faceplates always go with the design. One last thing to keep in mind is that slot drives were originally made to save space.. However the superslim tray drives like that which are on the M5/W5/V6..... are way smaller and lighter than they are.

If regards to oh... the M5 series, minus the M5....... M2/M3/M6.. the "M" stood for modular... and those drives came out(not just for upgrades) but also for a 2nd hard drive kit, or a 2nd optical bay battery...... or the neat little travelers drawer to lighten up the notebook.

So, with that said, we're left with the W1 (and the low end Z7, Z9, and a64 and P4 systems) that use a tray drive. The low end we don't even need to talk about because they are basic and we're not questioning those. But the W1 I think we all could...... it's a powerbook...... I mean, lost at birth, whatever... it came from the same minds and builders... it's their PC cousin. If anywhere a slot drive would be cool, it'd be there. Weight isn't an issue with a 7 pound centrino........ it's actually light for it's class. The original design of the W1 (a good year before it came out) showed a front loading drive..... That was tossed. I liked the idea and if none of you have seen that prototype I'll try to dig it up..


Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]