Blu-ray may be the current talk of the town, but there's still a war going on. HD DVD and Blu-ray are not only competing for space in your home theatre, but inside your laptop as well.
A next-gen optical drive isn't high on the list of most laptop buyers, and we've seen only a small number of laptops with Blu-ray or HD DVD drives to date. For one, adding such a drive is no small investment -- Dell charges AU$900 to add a Blu-ray burner to its XPS M1710 -- which places such laptops outside the budget of many would-be buyers. The added capacity that Blu-ray (25GB per layer) and HD DVD (15GB per layer) discs provide over standard DVDs (4.7GB per layer) isn't reason enough for those with expansive data archiving needs to pony up for a pricey drive. But if you are a digital content creator or a media producer working with high-definition video, such an investment starts to make sense. Or perhaps you just want a big desktop replacement laptop with a razor-sharp 1080p resolution -- and want to use your laptop to export HD video to your HDTV -- and you're prepared to spend a fair amount to get it.
Despite clairvoyance from the Blu-ray camp and the PS3 giving the Blu-ray format a leg up in sales, it's still too early to declare a winner in this HD format war. With that in mind, we present three laptops from Acer, Sony and Toshiba -- with Sony carrying the torch for Blu-ray while HP and Toshiba represent the HD DVD camp. Read the reviews to determine if your next laptop needs to be outfitted with a next-gen optical drive.
Acer Aspire 5675WLHi
The 5675WLHi is a poor man's way to HD DVD early adoption, but it clearly lacks the polish of its competitors.
Sony VAIO VGN-AR18GP
If you're happy to wait a few months for more Blu-ray content to land, the AR18GP is a powerful, multimedia-rich laptop whose only glaring omission is a TV tuner.
Toshiba Qosmio G30
Although the benefit of HD DVD is questionable, the Toshiba Qosmio G30 is still the most feature-rich home entertainment notebook we've seen to date.
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