T60 Drive

Theres a T60 for a grand at buy.com that does not come with a dvdrw.
If you put a dvd movie and play it on the T60 can you save it on your hard drive to watch it without the disk? Then when I get the dvdrw can I burn the data now on my hard drive on a dvdr disk? If you can do this will it be the same quality as a regular dvd movie?

 

Could I just buy an external dvdrw and plug it in via usb and burn dvd's that way on the T60?

 

Yes you can burn dvds that way.

 

Thanks for replying Zaz. I have another question: Can I put a dvdrw in the T60? I dont want to buy an IBM branded drive because they are expensive but on ultradrives.com they have all different brands. Now I believe IBM uses panasonic drives and they have many on the site. Will these fit? (one that fits basically perfectly, any brand is fine)

 

The T series uses the super slim 9.5mm height drives whereas everyone else uses 12.7mm height drives. This means you can only use Matshita drives which are kinda junky. They will work for occasional burning but an external desktop drive is probably a better choice speed and quality wise provided you don't need mobility. I don't think the ones on Ultradrives will work because they are the 12.77mm drives, but it doesn't hurt to ask. You are probably better off buying an T60 with a DVD burner if that is the route you want to go.

 

Thanks. Well do you recommend any sites that have mathista drives that will fit the T60? I cant find any and Im afraid that if I want an internal drive I will have to buy the expensive IBM branded matshita drive.

Well for me, I burn a few dvd's once a week. What would you do? If the higher end models with dvd-burners have the bad brand then maybe I should just stick with my model and get an external dvdrw.


Thats a shame that IBM uses an odd size that only one brand produces. You would think they would just stick with the 12.7 height considering every other manufacturer does. That seems ironic that a poor quality dvdrw is in a thinkpad.

 

Ultrabay slim drives tick me off because the little button is so low and on the edge at that bottom of the laptop that it gets accidentally pressed way too often.

Also, IBM could build faster 9.5mm drives if they wanted to but there's an issue with vibration if they make it any faster and scratching the disc. if u take a look at the ultrabay slim drive array, evertyhing pretty much touch each other and any vibration would mean the media hits either side of drive.

Your best source for drives is if you upgrade it when u buy the laptop from IBM. (it's also the cheapest) or ebay. But DVDRW drives goes for upwards of 200 dollars compared to $110 for the upgrade from IBM. The 8X DVD can be found on ebay for roughly $20.

 

Yea but I wanted to get one shipped imediately. Since the ready to ship models come with other upgrades and thus cost more than my 1000 max price, I cant get them. However, if I run into more money and can wait for custom built thinkpad I will def. just upgrade from IBM.

 

You can only get the drives from Lenovo and occasionally ebay which makes them expensive.

 

Well I did find it on costcentral.com for 213. But you said that the matshita drives are not that great so maybe I would have gotten an external drive even with a model that came with dvdrw.