Ultrabay blu-ray burner at Lenovo.com

Someone might find it interesting that Lenovo has put up the ultrabay blu-ray burner for sale at their site.
Now where's that $1,200 I just had lying around?
I wonder who would really buy one.

 

But it comes with WinDVD.

 

there are people whom will get it, i know couple of my friends ordered the BR drive when it first came out on the R61, it was like 1000 dollars extra.

Then there are miser whom would only get a DVD-ROM (which you could still get on the T500 not sure about the T410, T510, W510).

 

I thought Sony was insane for offering a $500 upgrade to a blu-ray player on the Z...

Is there a reason why it is so expensive?

Or is it the "We got, you want, give us all your money!"

 

well some HP DV series had the Blu-ray drive, the machine themselves costed like 800 dollars for a AMD Turion CPU.

But they were no options, when you purchase the laptop, so it was put in large amount of machines, thus cutting down on the procurement cost for parts and cost for inventory management per parts.

On a thinkpad the blu-ray is optional, so the costs is also higher. Furthermore, Ultrabay Slim is a difficult format for blu-ray due to the smaller laser diode and there is the problem of heat transfer, so the reliability of the components must also be higher. All of which adds to the cost of the blu-ray drive. Also Lenovo moves less of these devices, so the cost of these drive would be higher. Lastly, Blu-ray is more associated with movies and such, so it is not essential in most business and corporate targeted machines, so they move less of these devices as compared to say HP or Sony on their multimedia consumer laptops.

P.S. Sony is the responsible party for Blu-ray format, and they have manufacturing facility (either directly or jointly owned) to produce the Blu-ray devices. PS3 uses Blu-ray so the scale of their production is also higher. They probably can get these blu-ray drive cheaper than most other major laptop companies. Lenovo just purchase them in irregular batches when ever they run low on the stock.

 

The going rate for a W510 blu-ray drive was 250-300 USD. Good luck finding one right now.

I smell a rat.

 

W510 uses a SATA ultrabay enhanced drive.. it is thicker than the ultrabay slim drive. Also, when you quoted the price, did you quote the actual price from Lenovo.com online store or as a upgrade when purchasing the laptop? Also, the blu-ray drive you are talking about is a reader or a burner?

 

Blu-ray Reader / DVD Burner Ultrabay Enh 43N3295 is what I was referring to.
Adding blu-ray burning capability should not cost another grand.

 

If it was in the $300-400 range I would buy one. I need something for high capacity data storage as DVDs just aren't cutting it any more. That's how I found that link in the first place. But honestly, for $1200 you can get a fully loaded thinkpad, and for the price of a computer, it's just a little too rich for my blood. :\

 

i sure it is not going to be another grand, well it is actually 800 dollars more. But the strange thing is that the price of the drive is the same in Australia as it is in USA all 1199 dollars. So there could be an error on Lenovo's part somewhere.

However, it should be noted that very few manufacturers do blu-ray burner in 9.5 mm format, so it is more expensive on that regard. Regarding burner and reader, well if you cast your mind back to the CD-Reader and CD-Burner price difference then that should explain a bit about the price difference.

 

I personally don't see the point of having this Blu-Ray Ultrabay, especially at the price of almost a grand. If I want to watch a Blu-Ray movie I get a blu ray player (though my PS3 can do this too). Back up data? Get an external hard drive instead.

Probably the only thing you do want to have this Ultrabay is bragging rights really!

 

If you have a W510 or something and are doing a lot of HD work, I can certainly see wanting and needing a blu-ray burner. Especially if you are doing work for a customer shoot at a remote location.

If the media creation can wait, then a big 500GB drive in the ultrabay makes more sense which is what I do.

But I would like the reader for long flights or being stuck in a hotel with a crappy TV. I just can't find one now. It's almost as if Lenovo dropped the drive from the accessories for the W510.

 

this is also why it is so expensive as compared to the competition, most people wouldn't buy it and those whom will buy it would have to pay through their nose for the privilege of owning one. Since Lenovo is not moving enough volume of these drives and would therefore have to chase high margin from each drive sold.

 

Does anyone know if the following drive, LG ct21n, would work in a W510? Newegg.com - LG Black 8X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 6X BD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA Internal Blu-ray Super-Multi Combo DriveModel CT21N - Blu-Ray Drives

 

In that case, you should find the following listings interesting:

http://cgi.ebay.com/LENOVO-IBM-ThinkPad-T400-T500-W500-Blu-ray-Disc-NEW-/170532809956?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item27b48c2ce4#ht_2679wt_1137

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-IBM-Lenovo-ThinkPad-Blu-ray-Burner-Ultrabay-Slim-/330457299554?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item4cf0ca3a62#ht_3900wt_911

Ultrabay enhanced versions are even cheaper.

 

Why would you use any kind of optical discs for data storage? Today most economical and compact way to store data is a hard drives.

 

QFT. So far, I see no real point to the huge premiums that some OEMs place for getting a Blu-Ray reader or writer. What amazes me more is that many people go for it anyways... and then use it a total of once every few months.

Even then, an external Blu-Ray burner would make far more economic sense.

Roger's answered this multiple times across NBR - basically, he wants a write-once read-only format to store sensitive data for the long term. I would argue, however, that an encrypted RAID array would be more reliable and more flexible for data storage in the long run.

 

Consumer writeable optical media is no good for long term storage at all. If anything, it's worse than magnetic media - because organic dyes used deteriorate quite quickly.
Only factory masterdisc-stamped optical discs last forever because they don't use organic dyes like consumer writeable discs.

 

Good point.

 

Atleast someone reads my posts. Yes that is true, but, I posted this thread because I thought someone would find it interesting. I was pretty shocked to see how expensive it is, but as lead_org said it's due to not many of these being sold. I suppose that's understandable.

 

So why not get one off ebay at less than your targeted price of 300-400$?

 

I wont have anything to do with ebay any more, plus I like to be sure I am buying genuine parts. In another thread I posted that I just purchased an Asus external blu-ray burner last night for $200 at the Egg, it should be here tuesday.

 

Those wont work for W510. If I am not mistaken, T410, T510 and W510 all use 12.7mm Drives. The ones on your links are all 9.5mm.

The good thing about 12.7mm drives is that they can easily be bought from Ebay for $100-$150. The generic ones will not have a matching bezel, which can also be bought from ebay or use the one from existing dvd drive


Or get one like this
LENOVO IBM ThinkPad W700 R400 R500 Blu-ray Disc NEW! - eBay (item 170520182175 end time Aug-26-10 10:22:33 PDT)

 

The T410 uses Serial Ultrabay Slim (9.5mm)

The R400/R500, W510, T510, etc uses Serial Ultrabay Enhanced (12.7mm)

I did not refer to the W510, nor does the drive which the OP linked to - so I don't see how I was "wrong" in posting the links.

If you check my first post I also mentioned the following:

"Ultrabay enhanced versions are even cheaper."

Edit: (Serial) Ultrabay Slim drives can even be used in (Serial) Ultrabay Enhanced.

 

Sorry my bad about the T410.

The OP has a W510 so I was referring to the cheaper 12.7mm drives. No offense to you

I dont know why no one is making a decent 9.5mm blu-ray reader for $150. A lot of ultraportable notebooks can benefit from them.

 

because only a small number of companies manufacture ultraslim blu-ray burner/reader, and there is not lot of demand for them.

 

Probably. It works in my T510. I bought an ASUS external SBC-06D1S-U, and gutted it. Inside, it's the LG CT21N. I moved the Lenovo DVD parts over to the LG, and have been enjoying it since April.

 

hi is it possible that you post a picture of what the result looks like? So that those members whom are interested can also follow this.

 

I can if there's huge interest, but it was really simple, and pics won't add much, you cannot tell the difference externally-- it looks exactly the same. When I pop the LG CT21N out of the T510, it says LG on the outside. The Lenovo was slightly better looking, but I never see it, so no big deal. The drive form factors are identical, right down to the screw holes.

I bought the ASUS for $150 CDN. It comes with Blu-Ray software, which is essential, and usually about $50. You can see the product here.

I gently lifted most of the edges of the ASUS enclosure with slim steak knife, and pulled out the LG CT21N. The ASUS enclosure has a SATA-to-USB bridge, which you will not need to move over. ASUS includes USB accelerator software in the package, which I also no longer needed, a nice benefit of moving the drive internal.

I swapped the ASUS / LG CT21N faceplate with the Lenovo faceplate using my fingers and a small screwdriver. I swapped the rear plastic "anchor" doohickey on the Lenovo, and put it on the LG CT21 -- this allows the drive to 'click' into place, and unlatch when needed. If iirc, there were a couple of mounts I had to move over as well. That's it.

I put the Lenovo drive (an LG drive iirc) into the ASUS enclosure, so the original ASUS is now an external DVD drive. This was basically a gut-swap.

The LG CT21N shows up in Win7 as "ASUS", likely because ASUS flashed the firmware. But otherwise no apparent difference. This worked perfectly. And I get to re-use the ASUS enclosure for the Lenovo drive. And I got free Blu-Ray software. And I retired the ASUS USB accelerator software that I installed when I used it as an external Blu-ray player for my original testing. Keep in mind, you need sufficient graphics horsepower to run Blu-Ray. Intel HD graphics on the T510 worked very well.

My guess is the Lenovo branded Blu-Ray reader is the same LG CT21N, but just a guess.

I've watched about 20 Blu-Rays so far. It's very quiet. I'm very pleased with the results and pricing. Not as pleased with losing ASUS warranty support, but it's well worth the risk for me. Blu-Ray is awesome on both the T510 and my Dell external.

 

Sure beats paying over $1000.

I know, I know, it's a reader not a writer.

 

DUDE!!!!! I have this drive and NEVER thought of trying this!

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I swapped bluRay player combo from my old Toshiba X505 and it worked just fine in process similar to described above - just swapped front bezel and back/side Ultrabay plastic notches. It's a standard SATA optical drive bay form factor after all.

 

I just finished swapping mine. Works like a charm! Took about 20 minutes.

 

I was wondering, I'm planning on getting either a T410 or T510. Is it possible to upgrade to an internal BR player/writer?

 

You probably got a better shot on the T510 as it uses a 12.7mm drive. I think there was a post here of someone using an Asus drive in a T510. Maybe someone knows where it is?

There's Blu-ray drives for the T410 and T510. They're all listed in the HMM, but I think they're hard to find. You might want to try a T400 drive in the T410 or T510. They're easier to find on eBay or Google. My guess would be it'll work, but I can't say with certainty. Perhaps someone here can say?

 

On page 3 you can find the posting on the Asus, however that specific method only allows you to play BR discs not write and I'm looking to do both.

I've found a couple options on ebay. Here's the link to a possible one: eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

like you mentioned, on the discription it says it works with T400 and T500. I'm contemplating getting a T510 with i5 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB, 1080 resolution (perfect for movies if I can add this BR player/burner) NVIDIA NVS 3100m 512MB, 6-Cell Battery for 1,790 bucks.

The million dollar question is would it work?
Would I need BR software as well?
Would it make the machine lose battery power and weigh more?
Where would I know how to do it correctly if I can do this obviously...

Any feedback is appreciated!!

 

You might want to post over on ThinkPads.com. I think it's more likely someone over there has stuck a T400/T500 drive into a T510 than here. I can't say for sure cause I've not done it. My guess would be the drive is OEM so you'd need software. You could always ask them. They didn't mention it, which may be a clue. My blu-ray drive doesn't seem to weigh more or have worse battery life.

 

What type of software are you talking about?

 

You'd need software to play Blu-ray discs. They're much better copy protected than DVDs and won't play in the likes of Windows Media Player, QuickTime or VLC. There's free software for burning. ImgBurn and CDBurnerXP can both burn Blu-rays and are free.

 

Nice! Thanks for that. Know any free software for playing?

 

I found this out: Lenovo Support & downloads - ThinkPad Blu-ray Reader / DVD Burner Ultrabay Enhanced 12.7mm Drive (SATA) - Overview

If you scroll down a bit it says it's compatible with the T510. So I would have to find one one eBay then? Also where's the HMM?

Thanks.

 

All the Thinkpad Hardware Maintenance Manuals can be found here.

 

I'm new to this site so forgive me.

How do I post a question? My question: is there an internal blu-ray drive purchasable for the ThinkPad T510 with these specs: Win7 Pro-64bit, 1080 resolution, core i5 2.5GHz, NVIDIA NVS 3100m graphics card, 500GB 7200rpm... I've seen a few on eBay but on the item description it says it works with the T400 T500 W500 also Another that says it works with R400 R500

Thanks.

 

Does anyone know if this blu Ray drive works on my T510?

I tried to ask the seller if it's compatible with my T510 but I haven't gotten a response from him so I hope I can figure this out. Is there software with it you think or would I have to purchase that as well? Also would there be instructions on how to set it up? Thanks again.

LENOVO IBM ThinkPad W700 R400 R500 Blu-ray Disc NEW! - eBay (item 170535428226 end time Oct-02-10 11:21:43 PDT)

 

Yes. I bought a BD-RW drive for T510 from the same seller.

 

Awesome! What else comes with the drive?

It's a blu-ray burner AND player right?

 

There are two types of blu-ray drives. Blu-ray combo drives can only read, not burn, blu-ray discs. Blu-ray burners can also read discs, if I understand your question correctly. Or are you meaning does it come with software to play blu-ray movies?

 

So correct me if I'm wrong. Blu ray combo drives do not burn blu rays they only play them. However they can play and burn DVDs?

Blu ray burners both play and burn blu rays AND play/burn DVDs?
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Well my original question was if that blu ray drive the eBay one, the link is two responses before (sorry but I'm usuing my iPod with no copy and paste lol) would work on my T510. It says it works with W700, R400, R500 not T510.

 

I never found any. And I looked everywhere.

I received 'free' Cyberlink PowerDVD software with my ASUS external player, which was a nice bonus. LG will often include 'free' Cyberlink software players with their DVD and BD players. Maybe you could get a CT21 bundled with software, who knows...

There are retail offerings from AnyDVD and WinDVD which are popular. I've found over the years that the retail software players are better supported than the 'free' players (think: updates), but either should get the job done.

But, as ZaZ mentioned, you definitely need the software to play BD movies.

 

Well at least I know that thanks man. On the other hand, I still haven't found out if there's a Blu-ray burner/player for my T510. I posted the link to one on eBay that's like two hundred something dollars that says works with T400 T500 but the seller won't answer to me, and it doesn't even say if it comes with software so idk man. Any thoughts?