buy blu-ray later for the a2?

I was considering getting the A1 but to reduce cost up front i was just going to buy the blu-ray later. Is there any place that would sell the drive seperate?

 

Check out the older threads in this section about adding BR to the G51 systems. The same drives (SATA) will work in the G73. The best source is eBay. I added a BR drive to my G51 for about $100 and it works great. Note, unless Asus included BR playback software with the A2, you will need to get additional software. I really like Arcsoft TotalMedia Theater 3.

Ira

 

would the same thing work on my g50vt? Im thinking about upgrading to a blu-ray. I wish I got it with the system when i bough it. Next laptop will have blu-ray.

 

Just understand that with the ASUS G73 you're going to need to swap out the bezel. It's pretty painless but if you don't you'll ruin the lines of the laptop.

 

conversely you could pick up an x-2 model and add a 2nd hard drive instead

 

My problem being is I can get the A2 for $1450 with bing cashback. Even with $100 bucks it's $1550.

Microcenter, with salestax and shipping for the x2 is $1640ish. If i could somehow get rid of the salestax for NY I would love it, especially since the only microcenter is in NYC or Philly. Which would be at least 500+ mile round trip.

 

Just hope whatever drive you pick out will have great playback software and drivers. I think that's the kicker. Because if you're unhappy with the prepackaged software, be prepared to shell out a little extra cash for it. Granted my X2 came with the Asus software for Blu-Ray, but I haven't had a smashing good time playing Blu-Rays back on an external monitor...

 

Yep, you can easily add BR to the G50vt, I did it to my -X5 not long after I bought it. The drive I use is a Sony/Optiarc BC-5500S, I got it used from ebay for something like $65 shipped I think. The only reason I went with that drive is because I read that ASUS used it in other versions of the G50, I expect other SATA drives will work just fine, but I don't know for sure!

Mine came with no bezel, but it's a 2 minute job to swap the bezel from the original drive to the BR one.

Software is another issue as others have mentioned. I started with the Arcsoft Total Media Platinum as recommended in this thread and it's good, but I stopped using it because it would gradually creep up to using 100% CPU and then the playback would stutter. I switched to Corel WinDVD 2010 and the playback is fixed, but the actual software itself is crap compared to the Arcsoft stuff, I can't even get to the disc main menu without sitting or skipping through trailers, Arcsoft let me do that easily.

It's the best $65 upgrade I ever made to any PC!

Good luck,

Richard

 

Check your PM, Rivacom.

 

i haven't really had any issues with full versions of Cyberlink, although the bundled version I got with a desktop blu ray drive was a little finicky.

Having anydvd hd makes things so much easier, can get into the title set, select the full movie stream and play it mpc home cinema or something similar

 

The software that was bundled with my X2 was Cyberlink, but I think an earlier suite. I'm researching different suites. Man, I was about to cry my first night with my laptop. It took me an hour to get the playback correct. The girlfriend fell asleep waiting for me to set up.