Thinkpads Forum

They are included for every other large manufacturer.

It has been three generations of thinkpads (T400, T410, & T420) since Blu-Ray became standard.

Why is it so hard to put these drives on the thinkpads?

For as long as I have know IBM, then Lenovo, ThinkPads have been designed for business use rather than games and playtime. Maybe that explains the absence of Blu-Ray?

I seem to remember it as bing an option at one time, but it was expensive - maybe it was cut becasue no one was buying it? Thinkpads are designed as work machines, so expensive multimeida options are out there (although that is what they advertise the edge as being ). What I find suprising is that apple, with all their multimedia features, do not have BD - that is a bigger question (IMHO)

"ThinkPads have been designed for business use rather than games and playtime"

One ratio: 16:9

And to answer the Apple no-BD drive question, it's because Apple just doesn't feel like it- I believe the reason was that they didn't feel that the 'future of storage' was Blu-Ray.

It's not hard to put them on ThinkPads (as you asked). It is up to the marketing department to decide if they should be included as an option.

That said...it is easy to buy one and slide it into your ThinkPad. You might not like the prices.

The Pansonic UJ-232 is a 9.5mm SATA drive. You could try putting the bezel from your current drive onto that and see if it works. They're available on eBay for $150 or so. Since Lenovo uses Panasonic drives I'd say the chances are good, but that's a guess on my part.

I was thinking about it as a larger storage option.

I remember at least FRU 43N3230 being available for T400/T500, maybe it's compatible with newer models as well.

edit: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-73197

Q-Ball wrote: One ratio: 16:9

The difference is, compromising on screen ratio results in a lower cost. It happens to be because of multimedia usage that the ratio is popular, but the upshot of using 16:9 is that ThinkPads cost less. Businesses want to save money, so a move that leads to a cheaper ThinkPad is a good idea if you're courting said businesses. Including BluRay, however, would raise the cost of the laptop. Since businesses (for the most part) have no interest in helping their employees to watch HD movies, especially if doing so would cost more, BluRay is a no-go.

But isn't blu-ray a good backup option as well?

penartur wrote:But isn't blu-ray a good backup option as well?

Capacity-wise, kinda. I mean it's good in that it's high-capacity, but the price-per-GB is pretty poor compared to cheap drives, and if you use an incremental backup solution and a couple of cheap drives you'll get a more flexible, more reliable setup for a lot less money in the long run.

They may be a good backup solution for an individual, but for a big company, everything would be on the network - the BD drive would just be an added expense.

if i owned a company that doesn't deal with BluRay i'd think twice before adding more budget towards BluRay drive upgrades for my employees