optical drive

Sony will exit the business of making optical drives for PCs, another sign that traditional PC design is fading.

Japan-based Sony is getting out of the optical disk business as part of its restructuring effort, according to a Japanese-language report in the Asahi Shimbun.

A similar report appeared in Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun.

About 400 people, both domestic and overseas, will be offered early retirement, the reports said, adding that the move is coming in the wake of a $312 million net loss posted earlier this month.

Sony is aiming to close its Sony Opitarc optical disk division by March … Read more

How big can an ultrabook be before it stops seeming like one? Back at CES, the Acer Timeline Ultra M3 looked like a lot of other Acer Timelines: thin and full-featured, but not particularly "ultrabooky."

A few months later, we got some in-depth hands-on time with the Acer Timeline Ultra M3-581TG, featuring impressive Nvidia graphics and last-gen Intel processors. It turns out that that M3 won't see the light of day in the U.S., but its successor -- the Timeline Ultra M5 -- will, and it'll be available to order by the end of June.

Read our first take of the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5.… Read more

The sun is starting to show itself to the East Coast, which means you probably won't see Jeff outside without a hat, sunglasses, and industrial-strength sunscreen.

Joseph Kaminski hangs out in the studio with us this morning and helps us with the rundown that includes rumors about the next Xbox, a review of Mass Effect 3, and homeless 4G hot spots at SWSW 2012.… Read more

October 2008. I remember eagerly buying Apple's newly designed and sleekly beautiful unibody MacBook. My son, now 3 1/2, was just born. The last presidential election was just wrapping up. "Avatar" hadn't even come out yet. The iPhone was in its second iteration. The iPad was still a year and a half away.

A long time has passed since, yet the 13-inch MacBook Pro, in terms of just sheer design, has barely changed at all. Sure, under the hood it's a completely different computer: fast Intel processor, Thunderbolt, integrated long-life battery, better screen. Yet, I can line up that 2008 13-incher (then just known as the MacBook) next to the latest 13-inch Pro and most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. … Read more

For those who have been craving a more affordable Samsung ultrabook, here's your savior: the Series 5 Ultra.

Last year, the Samsung Series 9 nearly stole the show as one of the must-have laptops at CES, but the thin 13-incher--an ultrabook before the name ultrabook was coined--cost more than a MacBook Air.

This year, the Series 9 survives, in an even sleeker yet still expensive iteration. The Series 5 Ultra, which comes in both 13 and 14-inch varieties, starts at $899. That's the price we've come to expect from a Windows ultrabook, and surprisingly enough, the Series 5 Ultra looks like it hasn't made too many concessions to get there.… Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions on text highlight color turning gray, memory running low on a Macbook system, an optical drive no longer reading some discs, and iTunes unable to locate original song files. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present answers here, we welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Text highlight color turning gray MacFixIt reader Emory asks:

Pioneer's new BDR-XD04J contains a mind-numbing array of disc burning and playback options that should cover you for the next several years.

Perhaps the biggest highlight is support for BDXL BD-R discs, which means you can burn those fancy triple-layer 100GB and quad-layer 128GB Blu-ray discs in a tiny package. This is supposed to be the world's smallest BDXL-compatible portable drive. … Read more

(Read our new head-to-head buyer's guide for an updated comparison between the 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro and Air.)

Just a few short months ago (in March, to be exact), we wrote about an odd glut in Apple's otherwise streamlined lineup of products: instead of one or even two 13-inch laptops to choose from, Apple was offering three. The white MacBook, the MacBook Air, and the MacBook Pro each had a slightly different value equation in terms of design, features, and price.

That glut's been lessened a little now that the white MacBook has been discontinued. The MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro are the only two MacBook product lines left, and they represent two different solutions to same problem. The unibody aluminum Pro used to be considered thin, but it's--relatively--thick at 1 inch, and weighs over 4 pounds. The Pro offers better specs, while the Air, which has just been recently updated, leans toward light weight and quick booting as its advantages.

There's more to consider, though: the 2011 13-inch MacBook Pro and new 13-inch MacBook Air have become more similar than they've ever been before, for several reasons: performance, battery life, and a Thunderbolt port.

Two 13-inch MacBooks: which do you choose?… Read more

Apple included an optical drive in most Mac models, and even for those who do not have an internal drive there are options for using external USB or Firewire drives. While optical drives should accept formatted and blank optical media, there are times when people find that discs automatically eject from the drive when inserted.

This happens because the drive cannot recognize the formatting of the disc and also does not recognize it as a burnable medium. Usually the drive will recognize a disc and attempt to communicate its file-system structure to the computer, but if it cannot read the … Read more