Acting as free technical support for a friend.

They have an HP W8 laptop with a 17" screen and a DVD drive.

It is a little old (and dented) so they are looking for a replacement.
That is, 17" screen and DVD drive.
[I have tried to explain why they don't do them any more because everyone streams and stores stuff on huge hard drives.

Searching for a laptop with a DVD drive I found: <https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/st/laptops-with-built-in-dvd-drive>
However this is a 15.6" screen.

Amazon search is useless.

So far I haven't found anything else.

I am aware that you can buy an external DVD drive (which may be the
solution).

Does anyone know a source of laptops with DVD drives?

TIA



Dave R


--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 7 Pro x64

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

David <wibble@btinternet.com> wrote:

Acting as free technical support for a friend.

They have an HP W8 laptop with a 17" screen and a DVD drive.

It is a little old (and dented) so they are looking for a replacement.
That is, 17" screen and DVD drive.
[I have tried to explain why they don't do them any more because everyone streams and stores stuff on huge hard drives.

Searching for a laptop with a DVD drive I found: <https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/st/laptops-with-built-in-dvd-drive>
However this is a 15.6" screen.

Amazon search is useless.

So far I haven't found anything else.

Searching for '17" laptop DVD' (on in my case Startpage, other search
engines are available) came up with a number, eg: https://www.windowscentral.com/best-laptops-optical-drive

The main thing though is some of them are old - eg avoid anything with an
AMD A-series chip, and on Intel add 2010 to the 'generation' to get the year
eg the 10th gen (i5-10xxx) is from 2020.

Here's an 11th gen if you can find a UK source: https://www.costco.com/hp-17.3%22-touchscreen-laptop---11th-gen-intel-core-i5-1135g7---geforce-mx350---windows-11.product.100803095.html

10th gen: https://www.greengreenstore.co.uk/products/dell-inspiron-17-3000-laptop-10th-gen-i7-dvd-8gb-ram-hdd-ssd-nvidia-warranty

8th gen:
https://www.laptopstation.co.uk/laptops/1755770/

Not recommending these suppliers, but some models to look for.

Theo

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On 02/05/2023 13:26, David wrote:

Acting as free technical support for a friend.

They have an HP W8 laptop with a 17" screen and a DVD drive.

It is a little old (and dented) so they are looking for a replacement.
That is, 17" screen and DVD drive.
[I have tried to explain why they don't do them any more because everyone streams and stores stuff on huge hard drives.

Searching for a laptop with a DVD drive I found: <https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/st/laptops-with-built-in-dvd-drive>
However this is a 15.6" screen.

Amazon search is useless.

So far I haven't found anything else.

I am aware that you can buy an external DVD drive (which may be the solution).

Does anyone know a source of laptops with DVD drives?

TIA

Dave R

are they after brand new or 2nd hand?

I have a 2nd Hand Toshiba here with 4GB RAM, a 120GB SSD and Celeron
processor running on win8 or win 7 surplus to requirements

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 02 May 2023 14:48:52 +0100, Theo wrote:

David <wibble@btinternet.com> wrote:

Acting as free technical support for a friend.

They have an HP W8 laptop with a 17" screen and a DVD drive.

It is a little old (and dented) so they are looking for a replacement.
That is, 17" screen and DVD drive.
[I have tried to explain why they don't do them any more because
everyone streams and stores stuff on huge hard drives.

Searching for a laptop with a DVD drive I found:
<https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/st/laptops-with-built-in-dvd-drive>
However this is a 15.6" screen.

Amazon search is useless.

So far I haven't found anything else.

Searching for '17" laptop DVD' (on in my case Startpage, other search
engines are available) came up with a number, eg: https://www.windowscentral.com/best-laptops-optical-drive

The main thing though is some of them are old - eg avoid anything with
an AMD A-series chip, and on Intel add 2010 to the 'generation' to get
the year eg the 10th gen (i5-10xxx) is from 2020.

Here's an 11th gen if you can find a UK source: https://www.costco.com/hp-17.3%22-touchscreen-laptop---11th-gen-intel-

core-i5-1135g7---geforce-mx350---windows-11.product.100803095.html

10th gen:
https://www.greengreenstore.co.uk/products/dell-inspiron-17-3000-

laptop-10th-gen-i7-dvd-8gb-ram-hdd-ssd-nvidia-warranty

8th gen:
https://www.laptopstation.co.uk/laptops/1755770/

Not recommending these suppliers, but some models to look for.

Theo

Thanks Theo.

My findings were almost all refurbished so discounted.
Brand new is the way to go.

However I have done show and tell with an external DVD drive and this was
well received.
So the target is now to find an acceptable machine (8GB+ RAM, 256GB+ SSD)
and buy an external DVD drive.

Technical support for the non technical can be hard work, but I think this
is the way to go.
Windows 11 as a starting point and an upgrade path to W12 when it arrives should be good for a few years.

Cheers


Dave R

--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 7 Pro x64

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

David wrote:

Acting as free technical support for a friend.

They have an HP W8 laptop with a 17" screen and a DVD drive.

It is a little old (and dented) so they are looking for a replacement.
That is, 17" screen and DVD drive.
[I have tried to explain why they don't do them any more because everyone streams and stores stuff on huge hard drives.

Searching for a laptop with a DVD drive I found: <https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/st/laptops-with-built-in-dvd-drive>
However this is a 15.6" screen.

Amazon search is useless.

So far I haven't found anything else.

I am aware that you can buy an external DVD drive (which may be the solution).

Does anyone know a source of laptops with DVD drives?

TIA

Dave R

Probably something like HP ZBook. Modern laptops are usually too thin
for a drive, unless you get a "mobile workstation".

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)