A lot of laptops are coming
without DVD drives these days, like the super-thin ultrabooks or Microsoft’s
new Surface Pro 3. Apples Macbook Pro is another example of a highly popular
machine with no DVD drive.
Ultra-thin laptops are great.
They're light, super portable, and can handle almost any modern task you throw at
them. They don't come with DVD drives inside, but the fact of the matter is
that most of us rarely use disc drives these days. That said, there are still situations
in which they can come in handy—like when you're trying to install Dragon NaturallySpeaking
or Dragon Medical, ripping one of your own CDs, or when you want to watch a
movie on your laptop. A Portable USB drive is the best way to do those things
without an internal disc drive.
As far as purchasing your
external DVD drive, your local electronics store such as Best Buy will have
what you need in stock at a reasonable price. If you have a Mac, don't waste
your money on Apple's $80 model. You can also get one for as cheap as $30 on
Amazon or Newegg if you have time to wait. Once you acquire your unit simply
plug it into your USB drive, pop in your copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking or
Dragon Medical and you're ready to begin installation. As an added bonus you
can also now rip CDs to iTunes, play DVDs, and even boot from the drive if you
need to run Linux or reinstall Windows.
In the end, if you're going to
purchase a computer with no disk drive (which makes perfectly good sense these
days since online stores like iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix provide us with most
of our media), you really should consider spending the extra $30 on an external
USB DVD drive.
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