Panasonic Blu-ray drive slims down

Panasonic has started to ship samples of what it claims to be the thinnest Blu-ray drive in the world. This was made possible thanks to advanced optics, reducing the drive height to a mere 9.5mm from its previous height of 12.7mm – that’s a massive 25% reduction, making it slim enough to fit in light notebooks that previous did not have the chassis to support the HD disc format. Being small in size does not mean that it is equal in stature where performance is concerned. This Panasonic Blu-ray drive can write BD-R or BD-RE (rewritable) discs at 2X, support dual-layer, 50GB discs and upcoming low-cost, organic dye discs. Heck, it even does single-layer DVDs at 8X for those who have yet to make the HD jump.