Do you prefer a slot loading dvd drive compared to a tray drive ?

I dislike the slot loading drives, grabbing my dvds and possibly scratching it up
Why are they popular ?

 

I wasn't too keen on the idea of a slot-loading drive at first, but since I got my Studio 15, I've grown quite fond of it. I've had it since August of last year, and I have not had a single disk scratched. The slot is lined with very soft felt, which is the only thing that directly touches the disk on its way in and out.

The only thing I miss about tray-loading drives is how easy it is to remove the drive itself. With my last tray-loading drive, literally all I had to do was pull the thing out. With this slot-loading drive I have now, I have to remove the laptop's bottom plate, keyboard, hinge cover, and palmrest.

Overall, though, I enjoy the slot-loading drive. I see no reason to prefer a tray-loading type, unless you really need the ability to yank it out of the system at a moment's notice.

 

I prefer tray loading, just a lot less finicky than slot loading drives.

 

I agree, but I still like slot loading. (common, its cool watching your computer suck up a disk!!!)

 

Slot-loading looks cooler, but I wouldn't pay more for one since the differences are visual. From a functionality standpoint, slot-loading and tray-loading are the same.

 

Agreed. Slot-loading is nice, but not really enough to pay extra for. In the Studio 15, slot-loading is the only option, so there's not really an extra charge. When my mom ordered her Latitude E6400, she had the choice of tray-loading or slot-loading optical drive, for the same price. She ended up going with tray-loading; she's very old-fashioned. If it were me, though, I would have taken the slot-loading drive.

 

Just wondering, can modern slot-loaders take 8cm discs now?

 

tray loading ftw

 

No, just standard size CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray disks. I guess that's another thing you can chalk up in favor of tray-loading drives if you use those types of disks. However, those really aren't common; I don't think I've ever used a non-standard disk size for anything in my life.

 

I prefer slot loaders as they add a sleek look and feel, not to mention you dont have to worry about a flimsy fragile tray. I wish there was an option for my thinkpad and vostro cause I would be all over them.

 

Also an excellent point. If, for whatever extremely unfortunate reason, you drop your laptop or even put a slight amount of pressure on a DVD tray while it's extended, it's game over, man. With a slot-loading system, that's a complete non-issue. The worst you can do is damage the disk itself. Granted, dropping your laptop is never a good idea, but it presents a greater danger to open tray-loading drives than slot-loading ones, which are neither open nor closed.

 

I have been a laptop owner and user since the early to mid '90s and the tray has been the same flimsy fragile tray since its inception. My dell has a decent tray, but still I worry when putting a disc in that Ill press down too hard and snap it off one time. I would think that after being around for so long that they would build them a little stronger nowadays, but I guess its all about the money savings.

 

Yeah, I've always been paranoid about that as well.

You'd think after so many years of technological advancement, they'd be able to make a notebook drive tray just as sturdy as a desktop model...ah well. Like I say, I have a slot-loading so I can skip that concern entirely.

 

And I am jealous for that reason . My old Acer 5672 had a slot loading drive that I loved not to mention my wife's macbook has one, and yes I would pay extra for slot over tray.

 

I still use them quite frequently. So I will favor tray drives until I can get my information transferred to "proper" sized CDs

 

In that case, you may be able to replace your drive with a slot-loading model. The drives themselves are the same size, so all you need to do is make sure you get the right connector, and that there's nothing on your chassis that would block the slot. I can't go the other way around, though; the gap in the chassis is just large enough to slide a disk through, so a tray would have nowhere to open, and to remove the actual drive requires near complete disassembly of the laptop.

Out of curiosity, what were/are those disks ever used for?

 

my desktop used to have a Pioneer slot loading DVD tray and it was pretty nice although a little bit louder than it's tray loading counterpart. I wouldn't mind have a slot loading laptop drive either.

 

See the thing is the bezel on the dell would bother me, and my thinkpad has a quick disconnect option that I like so I think Ill have to stick with tray loaders for now.

 

I think that slot-loaders have the advantage of not accidentally popping open while in a backpack; in fact, it isn't possible to snap off the tray because there is no tray.

 

Loved the slot load drive on my Ferrari 4005. I think the tray drive is one of the few things I dislike about my Thinkpad. Slot loaders may e noiser, but I think they are harder to accidently eject the disk and I never saw any scratching of my discs

The only slot load drive I know of that takes non-standard sized discs is the Wii. They put some sort of plastic guide and engineering voodoo inside.

 

I support the tray with one hand at the bottomwhile putting the CD with the other.

 

I don't think it is easy to snap off the tray as they are usually pretty flexible up and down to avoid that. That is probably why they arn't made as sturdy as desktop tray drives. My opinion slot loading is good to watch but not so easy to replace and maintain/repair.

 

I think I'd feel compelled to use canned air on the opening of a slot load tray.

 

If your looking for slot load drives, I picked up a Panasonic SuperMulti (DL, and every format known to man outside of high def) pretty cheap off of Ebay last year. I definately moved in on an auction at the last minute but I think I got it for $35 or so. This was of course before I decided on a Thinkpad, so it sits largely unused aside from spot duty in a friend's old laptop that only had a DVD reader

 

I prefer a tray loading drive.
It also means one less motor which is less weight, less electricity use and most importantly - one less thing to break!!

 

Prefer slot loading drives:

- Less problematic (sometimes it happened that a tray drive on my desktop retracted its tray accidentally while I wanted to insert a disc, e.g. while boot up)
- nothing can break (notebook trays are flimsy)
- looks damn cool
- needs less outer space
- you can insert a disc at any angle without any problem, e.g. vertical
- it's super easy and you don't need any force to insert or remove a disc from a notebook drive

and I hadn't a single issue with them. No scratched disc, nothing.

 

I like slot loading better as well. It looks nice
Just make sure it's empty before you put a disc in

 

To satisfy your curiosity, I got a box of ~75 of them at a garage sale last summer for 5 bucks. I couldn't resist. I've used them for a lot stuff, but mostly to backup stuff and as a convent way to give files to my friends. Sadly, I'm down to my last dozen.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself Detlev! Especially that part about breaking stuff since I tend to be a bit of a klutz.

 

Never had an issue with trays. I have 10+ year old IBM thinkpads with cd rom drives and they survived many years of use. Those were the only old ones that I had that actually had a cdrom, or atleast an internal one.

My old pentium 1 Vaio P is too small for an optical drive. Uses a proprietary pcmcia one.

 

I like Trays. In addition on some notebooks, like latitudes, its modular. So you can replace it with a floppy drive (as if ) a extended battery, etc.

Didn't know they offered a slot load option on e6400....interesting.

 

This poll is missing a "Who cares?" option.

 

LOL, I care... wait no i dont. I prefer tray as i said. But on an ultra thin I can see there being no option but to slot load.

 

I had no choice as I got an inspirion form dell and the only option was a tray-loader.

As said earlier here, I wouldn't pay any more for a slot loader and it won't affect my choice of laptop at all.
There is something of a more safe feeling to have a tray for some reason, that the disc is safeer somehow in the tray (probably an illusion).

In the end the slot loader is style, and thats squarely in the area of macs, style etc, and not worrying how much stuff actually costs.
That was fine when I was a kid and the parents bought my macs, now I earn my own $'s I became more sensible (thus I haven't bought a mac since).

 

hmmmmm... DVD RW writer or... floppy.. can it fit the 5 1/4" floppy drive?

 

LOL, doubt it. I havent seen this option on a notebook in a long time though. Had a compaq that had a floppy/cd bay but the batteries had a sliding cover you could go dual battery and slide the cover to fill the gap.

 

Sounds like lego or somethin!

Being new to the laptop world i'm finding how much i miss the flexibility from all that room inside the case that comes with owning a desktop... apart from it being slightly less portable that is

 

Modern Flexibility in a laptop? Every laptop is different, but back in the day we had bricks you could nearly fit a 3.5 inch HDD in if u tried.

We will put My G50 up as an example. You can obviously change the CPU and Ram as well as the wireless card which uses an express card slot. The graphics card in this model uses an MXM slot but is a proprietary card so no real upgrades there.

The G50 has room for 2 hard drives in a 15.6 inch chassis and supports raid. There is also a second hidden express card slot which can be used for a 3rd HDD of the SSD persuasion or a TV Tuner, which the G50 has an antenna port for. You also have the express card slot which can be used for all kinds of expansion.

The CDrom bay is another area of change, as for this thread you could go for a slot loader or upgrade to a bluray burner not offered by ASUS. You can also get a kit to replaced the optical drive with an SSD... some people do it on other laptops.

Like a desktop, no of course not but it has room to grow and add onto it.

 

Truth be told, by the time something needs upgrading (anything beyond popping more ram in or adding another HDD) on my desktops in the past, it's about time just to get a whole new system anyway as everything is pretty much outdated and better starting from scratch with tech moving as fast as it does.

 

There are some really thin trays out there... like on the Lenovo Thinkpad X301, for example.

 

I prefer tray. My dad's MacBook got stuck with a DVD that had sticker label, and it also takes me longer to eject a slot load on it.

 

Yeah true, they've mostly been freebies for some company, but I did have a nice 193MB CD-RW which I used to take around. Then USB came along...

I have a HP Pavilion tx2500z - I prefer to leave the dvd drive at home in my drawer It would be nice to have a USB adapter to that but it's got a funky proprietary connector at the back.

 

I like tray-loading - call me old-fashioned, but I like having possession of my DVDs or CDs if something goes wrong - and the ability to open the drive without power is nice once in a blue moon, too. Stability of the drive did worry me at first, but after nearly two years with an Inspiron 1520 that doesn't concern me anymore - at least not on my laptop. And while I have accidently hit the open button in the past, it's never really been a problem - if I'm watching a DVD, I probably don't have my finger right next to the laptop anyways.

 

Tray drives also support mini discs too though, which is a plus.

 

I favor Tray Loading Optical Drives over Slot Loading Optical Drives, it is so much easier to repair it if anything goes wrong, and the good old "clack" sound when the tray is ejected is a plus.

 

Tray its cheaper and easier to upgrade, I had an xps m1330 and I hated slot loading .

 

Slot load also suppor mini disks I tried them on my m1330 without problems .