Lightscribe in a Vostro/Inspiron?

Just a passing thought... am I right in assuming that it's easy as pulling out the cd drive to replace the optical drive, can I get a lightscribe dvd burner and just plug one in, and is lightscribe worth an upgrade?

 

i believe so, but as for lightscribe, i have a one in my desktop and it just doesnt get used...you need special media for it, and the results are less than spectacular

 

Okay thanks for the answer. I was just wondering if it was worth the upgrade.

On that note, it should be just as easy to upgrade to a notebook blu-ray/hd-dvd burner, once they become available and cheaper, right?

 

Ya it'll just be a matter of swapping a blu-ray drive with your dvd drive.

 

i have also been wondering, how difficult it is to swap out the optical drives. because i could get a DVD burner with lightscribe for half the price of the one without that dell offers.

 

Not sure about Dell but it shouldn't be too hard. I remember people taking out Thinkpad drives like nothing. Probably a screw here and there

 

Thinkpads have modular ODs, which mean you can easily hot swap it without much hassle, and in place can put in an empty tray to take off 0.6~ lbs, or an extra battery to improve battery life.

As for Dell, you can remove it, there are a bunch of screws, but if you replace it, remember it will look out of place since the Dell OD has a bezel in front of the OD tray so it looks flush. Using an aftermarket OD will result in a large gaping hole

 

can swap optical drives easily. vostro and inspiron share the same chassis, it just the all balck color that differs. there's only 1 screw that holds the optical drive in place and just remove it and you can pull away the drive.

about lightscribe though, not a fan of it and better to get the Bluray although no HDMI output for LCD TV viewing

vostro/inspiron optical drive removal try this
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1720/en/sm/optical.htm#wp1179838

 

It looks real easy to remove, its just one screw that you remove and then you can remove it, it tells you how to in the manual.

I have doubts about an aftermarket drive fitting, on the 1520 the edge towards the back of the computer has a cutout because the media reader is there, other drives I have seen don't have that part removed.

 

Same for the 1720/1700 it has a cutout for the media reader.