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UJ-225b Bluray in M1710?

post #1 of 9
4/11/08 at 6:11am
Thread Starter 
Was looking at Panasonic UJ-225B as a blu-ray writer drive for an upgrade of the DVD writer in my xps m1710. It is a slot loading drive and runs at x2 BD-R writing speeds. Ridiculously expensive at the moment here in the UK (£325+VAT), so I have to be sure that it would fit/work OK in the Dell notebook before I shell out for it.

Has anyone got this drive fitted in the xps m1710?

Thanks
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post #2 of 9
4/11/08 at 4:42pm
Optical bays on notebooks are standard. Therefore, as long as its a standard slimline drive, it will fit. There are other issues to worry about such as CSEL firmware and what-not but most likely it will just work automatically.
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post #3 of 9
4/11/08 at 6:54pm
I'll get a PS3 to work with Blueray...much better and worht the money
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post #4 of 9
4/13/08 at 8:14am
Thread Starter 
Thanks, I was just worried about it being a slot drive unit (whether the bezel would fit properly in the Dell xps m1710 drive bay).

Anyway, I just discovered the website is selling these drives in multiples of 10; so the minimum purchase is for £3,250 + VAT. So I probably won't be buying!
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post #5 of 9
4/13/08 at 8:37am
By the way, while it would fit, there would be a noticeable gap between the laptop outer shell and the drive. The drive sits recessed in the bay quite deeply. It was a bit annoying to me but not too big of a deal. There are pics of this around the forum somewhere and in my case the gap was almost big enough to fit a cd in.

So if you need mobile blu-ray, you should probably stick to the drive(s) Dell sells. Elsewhise, as mentioned, go with the PS3.
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post #6 of 9
4/14/08 at 3:45pm
Thread Starter 
Hello again

Apparently there is a standard called GBAS that allows any bezel made by anybody to connect on to any complying drive. However depending on the age of a notebooks it might not have a GBAS bezel so the bezel on the chassis would not line up with the connections on the replacement drive.

So this is only an issue if Dell are using a custom bezel, ie its thicker or a weird shape to make it flush with unit shape when compared to the standard flat bezel that comes with slimline drives.

Do you know whether the bezel that Dell uses is a std. GBAS bezel or not?

NigelS
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post #7 of 9
4/14/08 at 6:20pm
It doesn't matter but I'm pretty sure it does. So if you bought a regular drive you could put your Dell bezel on it. However, this is a slot loading drive. The bezel is completely different and you would need Dell to make a slot loading bezel first (which I'm pretty sure it hasn't). Again, this doesn't affect drive functionality but it does leave a gap between the plastic and the bezel.
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post #8 of 9
4/15/08 at 5:18am
Thread Starter 
Sorry, I forgot to mention one vital change in my thinking, since the thread started - I am no longer considering the UJ-225B drive, but the NEC Optiarc BC-5500A.

I decided that all I really need is a blu-ray reader not writer. The NEC Optiarc has a std bezel (still only 12.7mm) and is much cheaper than the UJ-225b (obviously).

NigelS
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post #9 of 9
4/15/08 at 8:06am
Oh well then the Dell bezel on your current drive should fit just fine on it. No gap at all.
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