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Media Bays for expanability on all laptop lines

230 points posted to Laptop Power by sykosoft Apr 22

Not so long ago, nearly all Dell laptops had media bays (nearly all of the inspiron, latitude, and precision models). Expandability is one of the reason I come back to Dell again and again. Instead of having to purchase a new laptop to add a blu-ray (or whatever comes next) drive, I simply purchase the media bay device. Similarly, no matter how good battery life becomes, a single battery will NEVER be able to last as long as 2 batteries. 2 will always be more than 1. (rumor has it the e-series won't have a media bay battery, this would be very unfortunate!)

cryingmonkey
Apr 22		 I agree. Media bays were the greatest thing to happen to laptops, especially the batteries, so you could plug in an extra battery when you're not going to use your optical drive. Plus, if Dell started offering interchangeable HD-DVD and Blu Ray drives, they could make a bundle. Although In my humble opinion, I am glad Dell went with Blu Ray because the technology is far superior to HD-DVD.
cestuila
Apr 23		 I think Dell should preserve Media Bays in the Latitude and Precision range.
And as far as I understand, Latitude E6xxx will have a Media Bay, and Latitude E5xxx won't.
sykosoft
Apr 24		 Although the E-Series was reported to have a media bay, the leaked comparisons show that no media bay BATTERY is available. This would be an unfortunate move to an otherwise impressive spec sheet. I'm waiting for a blu-ray drive to become available in the D-series bay, however, it may not happen until the e-series. I'm wondering if they will maintain the same form factor between the equivalent precision models from the latitude models? (Precision is the best, I love my Precision M4300).
sin
Apr 27		 Their smart bay is the only thing that tempts me to get an alienware.
inkslug
Jun 18		 agree with all of you, nuff said
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