It's almost 2026, and Fujitsu is doing its best to save optical disks - the A77-K3 is a 16-inch 13th-gen Core i5 laptop with a DVD drive
Posted by wickedplayer494@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 117 comments
globaldu@reddit
It's almost 2026 and Fujitsu is manufacturing laptops with only 256gb storage:
paeschli@reddit
Wait until you find out how many GB of storage a Macbook Air comes with
DeliciousIncident@reddit
If you go to the laptop's page, it says that the storage is configurable between 2TB, 1TB, 512GB and 256GB. Same with RAM: 64GB, 32GB, 16GB, 8GB.
1mVeryH4ppy@reddit
Read the news about DVD/BD drive sales soaring in Japan as people prefer to install Win11 from disks. Crazy stuff in 2025.
MrLancaster@reddit
Physical media seems to be making a comeback. And I can attest that a 4k Blu-ray is a massive quality jump from a 4k stream.
gumol@reddit
is there sales data to back it up?
paeschli@reddit
Anecdotally, I would say no. LG has stopped making Blu-Ray players, Pioneer has stopped making Blu-Ray drives and Sony has stopped making BD-R blanks.
Strazdas1@reddit
1080p blu-ray is better quality than 4k stream. 4k streams tend to be completely crap due to insane compression streaming services have. Just remember that youtube offers better quality video than paid services like netflix or HBO.
Important-Permit-935@reddit
tbf HBO and Netflix might have poor quality, but they produce phenomenal exclusives and YouTube is still not profitable.
Strazdas1@reddit
Youtube has been profitable since 2021 according to youtube CEO. Of course we dont have access to internal numbers.
HBO used to produce phenomenal exclusives, not so much anymore. Netflix is hellbent on killing any good exclusive they have.
Important-Permit-935@reddit
Til for youtube, but netflix still makes good exclusives, I recently watched Dept. Q. The point is that, other than hosting and shoving scam ads at its users, YouTube doesn't really do anything.
Strazdas1@reddit
Youtube has plenty of good content not available anywhere else as well. Its just that such content isnt youtube funded. Anyway, the point of the discussion was that none of the streams (not even youtube) come close to quality of image that an old Blu-ray does.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
I'm just saying, expect 5.25 and laptop optical bays to make a comeback in higher model cases soon...
BlueGoliath@reddit
Don't get people's hopes up. This trend of minimalist fish tank PC cases is obnoxious. Bring back workstation PC cases.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Funniest possible outcome: Fishtank case with an optical bay.
tsparks1307@reddit
It would be pretty trivial to stick a couple 5.25 optic bays in the "basement" of a case. A lot of modern cases already have bays for HDDs/SSDs down there.
fmjintervention@reddit
Fractal Design has already done this with the Pop cases, released 2022. This isn't a fishtank style case, but the idea of putting some 5.25" drive bays in the front of the case basement has already been done. No reason why a manufacturer couldn't do this to a fishtank style case.
Pic
IANVS@reddit
In most fishtank cases bottom fans are almost useless, they drop 1-2 degrees of heat for the extra cost of 3 fans and added noise. That space on the bottom can be used for mounting drives and stuff...
Fishtanks/dual chamber cases are dumb in general. Can you have great airflow and temps with a standard case? Yes, you can and with half the fans used. Can you have RGB? Yes, you can. Can you fit big GPUs and radiators? Yes, you can.
But surely you get extra storage space now that you get a separate chamber in your fishtank? Lol nope, still 2 if you're lucky. And you have to mind all that glass. And they push you into keeping them on your desk eating precious space, because they're designed to be filmed in YouTube showcases, not to be practical (and because they put the fucking I/O on the bottom). And don't even get me started on "minimalistic" I/O...I paid for all those ports, I can use them, give them back to me.
And now Corsair made a triple chamber case...FFS, just stop already...
fmjintervention@reddit
If you want heaps of expansion, lots of ports and massive airflow, I think fishtank cases just aren't for you. There's nothing wrong with prioritising aesthetics, especially when most gaming PC builds are so simple in terms of demands. I flip gaming PCs as a side hustle and most gaming PCs nowadays don't use any drive bays at all, they just have a single M.2 drive. Most gamers don't need heaps of IO or internal expansion, motherboards have good enough sound/networking/storage support that the only expansion card in the computer is the video card. For most people, all the front IO they need is a power button, headphone jack, two USB type A ports, and a USB type C is nice but not strictly necessary. For these builds, fishtank cases look great and are perfectly functional.
IANVS@reddit
The thing is, gamers are just a subsection of overall PC userbase but, for some reason, they tend to overblow their importance. I don't mean to belittle people playing games, I can be called a gamer myself. But you can be a gamer while doing other stuff too and hardware can be designed to beneftit both gaming and other tasks. There is no reason I can't have another two USB 2.0 ports or a Reset button on a fishtank, for example. We used to have those, you know. That's the problem here with PC cases (and not just cases) - gaming got prioritized at the detriment of everything else.
Worse yet, it's not even actual gaming and gamers, it's the perception of it. You know, the image that marketing departments and media serves you when someone mentions gaming. You gotta have lights everywhere, you gotta have the biggest and strongest GPU, you gotta have an OLED monitor, you gotta have a fishtank filled to the brim with ARGB fans, you gotta have an HE mechanical keyboard, etc. or otherwise how are you a gamer?! You don't need any of that shit to enjoy games. It's such a bullshit, profiling and a ploy to sell crap to people. And that is how we got into mess we're discussing here. We got an artificial divide to gaming vs. other where there's no need to have one, you can have it both.
I don't mind, give fishtanks to people that want them. But at the same time give people like me other options that arent low tier or super niche. Offer a solid side panel along a glass or mesh one as regular offer. Don't take useful stuff out, everyone can benefit from more USB ports, the mobo has headers, might as well use them (and gamers do tend to use them for a lot of stuff). Anyone can benefit from a Reset button, gamer or not. If a case has room for it, put an extra HDD mount in there, you never know who might use it. Put a fucking filter on the mesh intake, you only get a degree or two in heat as opposed to not having a dust trap. There's really no reason to not have it all in a "gaming" case but people have to ask for it, not defend being shafted by manufacturers...
Jeep-Eep@reddit
And funnily enough, I could see the fishtank types being the sort to shell out for 4k Bluray support...
fmjintervention@reddit
The absolute majority of PC builders are building their PC primarily to play games on, so yes manufacturers prioritise gamers. It's their biggest sales demographic, by a long shot. Gamers don't care about having a million USB ports, or heaps of PCIE expansion slots, or loads of SATA ports. Most gaming PCs nowadays have one expansion card (the video card), one or two SSDs, no HDDs, no optical drive, and maybe 3-4 USB devices plugged in. That's a keyboard and mouse, maybe a headset, maybe a controller or other input device like a steering wheel. Given how many laptop gamers there are out there, it's fair to say a substantial proportion of gamers (PC building's largest demographic) could get by with 3 USB ports, maybe even 2. If anything I think you're overstating your importance, as loads of connectivity and expansion just isn't a priority for most people.
You don't need any of the stuff you mentioned to play games, but they're nice to have. You can play current gen games on a $300 Xbox Series S if you want and there's nothing wrong with that, but there's a lot of people out there who buy the nice monitors, high end graphics cards, and nice keyboards because they want a better experience and there's nothing wrong with that either.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
yeah, and even if you're not into optical drives, it's a great high utility slot for everything from HDDs to the current LCD fad; seems a missed chance not to use that for that...
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Thermaltake could aftermarket it onto a number of their chassises.
Click_This@reddit
My Ncase M1 is exactly that!
BlueGoliath@reddit
It would double as a hole to pour fish food into.
ky56@reddit
You mean like this one.
https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/server-nas/cs383/
It's more for a NAS but to me has many elements of a good Workstation case, depending on what usecase you center it around.
IANVS@reddit
Amen. The old Fractal's monoliths like the Defjne R5 and R6 are some of the best. I wish they didn't abandon that design in favor of chading trends...
Snibberwhirl@reddit
Planning on purchasing one the Fract POP XL Silents for this explicit reason, a solid BD read/write drive is a godsend.
Nicholas-Steel@reddit
Am kinda annoyed that various cases that do support such a drive now tend to position it at the bottom so you gotta really bend over to use the optical drive and it's much more susceptible to dust clogging it up.
Whirblewind@reddit
As per Corsair's data, most people have their rig on a desk these days, so no bending over necessary.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Funniest possible outcome is Fractal brings out a Torrent II that fixes the lack of bays issue GN dinged it (rightly) for including a 5.25 or laptop optical bay.
xternocleidomastoide@reddit
you forgot the /s
Jeep-Eep@reddit
With the fashion for physical media again, no /s.
xternocleidomastoide@reddit
k.
LOL
Slabbed1738@reddit
Dude is delusional lmao
Important-Permit-935@reddit
what does this have to do with windows from discs? You can already install from USBs and they're much better in every way...
MrLancaster@reddit
You got horse blinds on. The topic was not about installing windows.
Important-Permit-935@reddit
I thought you were talking about this
my bad
Nicholas-Steel@reddit
That's because a 4K Blueray is stored at like 40 or 50Mbit/s while a stream would maybe be around 15Mbit/s if lucky.
Strazdas1@reddit
netflix does not reach 15 mbits/s. Youtube is the only streaming platform i saw that hit that mark.
surf_greatriver_v4@reddit
We know
hollow_bridge@reddit
the lack of quality 4k streaming is kinda irritating.
Wemban_yams_it@reddit
It's why I still sail the 7 seas.
BatteryPoweredFriend@reddit
30-40mbps is bluray 1080p. 4K is nearer the 80-100mbps mark.
kuddlesworth9419@reddit
1080p BluRay is superior to 4k streaming.
Nicholas-Steel@reddit
Thanks for the correction.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
The sneakernet is still king.
got-trunks@reddit
I just have a script that should scrub anything with the word remux when the lawsuits arrive /s
Strazdas1@reddit
i would always burn a windows installer to a disc to install from because thats the most reliable way to boot it in. Win 11 was the first time i didnt.
Tman1677@reddit
I mean USB drives have been just as reliable for booting since... the creation of UEFI? I first learned how to install an OS using CDs, but in hindsight that was completely unnecessary and only because the docs I was learning from were outdated.
Strazdas1@reddit
Well i was installing OSes since win95 so it was a habit as well as bad experience with USBs early on. I used to do some extra work as private IT help and USB installs were very much hit or miss those days while CD installs always worked. Furthermore, it was unknown computer so CD was a lot less prone to bring home a virus. The habit stuck all the way to win 10 for me.
ZTE2976@reddit
As someone who uses optical disks daily this is amazing
toddestan@reddit
It's nice to have options. I don't really need an optical drive in my laptop, but it is nice they have an offering for the people who still want or need one.
tired_fella@reddit
It's because Japanese offices and departments are slow to change away from physical media and other old standards. So e of their newest professional laptops come with VGA too for similar reasons.
WJMazepas@reddit
Honestly, VGA makes sense for a lot of offices, not just Japanese ones
Even colleges in my city use VGA to this day on the projectors
ixid@reddit
You could tape dongles to the projector cables and then not need VGA on the laptop.
Impossible_Suit_9100@reddit
but dongles get lost or forgotten, better to always have it in a laptop
ixid@reddit
Not that likely if you tape them in place, then it's just a cable.
crystalchuck@reddit
Why though?
nd4spd1919@reddit
Why replace what isn't broken?
Let's say you have to replace projectors in a school with 120 rooms. The cheapest projector on Epson's website is a $420 1024x768 classroom projector, multiplied out that's $50k worth of projectors.
crystalchuck@reddit
No I get that but "makes sense for most offices" sounds like a positive distinction instead of the negative distinction of being expensive to replace
smarlitos_@reddit
VGA definition is decent, especially if you’re mainly presenting PowerPoints and papers. You don’t need 4K for that 😅
If you revisit some older tech, you’ll see we’ve had good 900p and 1024p screens and projectors for a while, which look pretty decent for what they have to do
nd4spd1919@reddit
Schools/Offices live off legacy equipment. My school district handed out laptops with VGA out until around 2022, and the school-owned document cameras still are VGA-only. My BIL's office just last year got rid of around 2 dozen 1280x1024 Dell monitors that IIRC are from 2009 that had still been in use, plugged into USB-C docks with VGA out. As long as its functioning as it should, there's little push to replace and create an unnecessary expense.
Most cheap school/office projectors are XGA, and, even the old ones, are fine for presenting on. By our standards the colors are washed-out, and small text legibility is low, but those things don't really help a powerpoint presentation. Bumping that $420 XGA from my previous example to WXGA adds $200 to the price. A 1080p projector brings the total cost to $1k, and honestly, as someone who presented from a projector on a daily basis, 1080p would have made no difference. It's a way different use case than people using laser projectors as TV replacements in home theaters.
a60v@reddit
VGA can run for a hundred feet or more with good cable. HDMI and Displayport can't do that without converting to fiber or HDBaseT or something like that. If you're connecting a device at a lectern to a device in a projection booth at the back of the room, this matters.
Windowsrookie@reddit
Same in Healthcare. We still have 10,000+ LCD monitors in use that are VGA across the hospitals and clinics.
cocowaterpinejuice@reddit
Physical media is superior because it doesn't go out.
RazingsIsNotHomeNow@reddit
Tell that to all the Warner Brothers DVDs suffering from disc rot lol
cocowaterpinejuice@reddit
It's because the companies stopped making new physical media, they went full digitization to own everything.
Slabbed1738@reddit
Thought my PS3 was broken when my Simpsons Blu-ray didn't work lol
HuntKey2603@reddit
You've never actually used DVDs have you
Skrattinn@reddit
Physical media might still see some resurgence. I've noticed some people trending towards physical media (especially in gaming circles) where they're souring on the idea that their software is only 'licensed' and not outright owned. The recent anger over Switch 2 carts being glorified download codes somewhat supports that.
I have zero interest in physical media but I still can't really disagree with the sentiment. The difference between a high bitrate Blu-Ray and low bitrate Netflix stream can be pretty staggering once you actually see the difference.
pdp10@reddit
For the curious, 80 Mbit/s is typical for the video portion of a UHD/4K Blu-ray, with H.265 compression. Another 2 Mbit/s for the audio. Format maximum bitrate is 128Mbit/s.
loozerr@reddit
I don't think there's going to be a resurgence since the same companies control the rights, enshittification just had not gotten as far when physical media was the default. Except for Sony copy protection of course.
For example dvd releases have issues since they're cramming dual layer releases to single layer discs. Vinyls tend to be a money grab with the exact same mix, only technical reason to go for vinyl was that during loudness wars they had a more reasonable mixing.
hollow_bridge@reddit
both my parents still use optical discs in their systems, for different reasons too.
kjbbbreddd@reddit
Japanese people also use USB flash drives and the internet to install Windows 11.
Impossible_Suit_9100@reddit
impossible, i thought they'd still use diskettes
UGMadness@reddit
Big if true
porcinechoirmaster@reddit
There are advantages to physical disks. They can't be a trojan for anything except data, and they are intrinsically read-only. It is very difficult to exfiltrate data from a PC via a CD-R when you don't have a burner.
A USB thumb drive can, in addition to being a device designed to be read from and written to, can be a keylogger, a radio, or hell, even a physically destructive device in its own right.
There is a place for read-only, entirely passive media.
vandreulv@reddit
Sony Rootkit scandal.
No. A disc is not inherently safer than a thumbdrive when it comes to potential data on the disc. There were also manufactured DVDs that abused autorun to try to install copy protection malware on systems.
hollow_bridge@reddit
That's mostly true, but usb does have more vulnerabilities than discs. You can't destroy hardware with a disc drive.
Dpek1234@reddit
People can get creative
vandreulv@reddit
Most motherboards have fuses on the USB ports by this time since the discovery of USB Killers.
USB Killers are also ridiculously expensive for someone to just be dropping around for random people to pick up.
USB Killers might zap a device, but the odds are, due to traces having to run through to chipsets, data is going to remain unharmed even if the port is fried.
I put a USB Killer on a MacBook Air (Intel based, so 2014ish) that was on its last legs. While the system shut off after plugging it in, all it did was disable that one port and the rest of the system worked fine after turning it back on.
a60v@reddit
That was more of a Windows problem, with autorun being enabled by default.
porcinechoirmaster@reddit
I said nothing about the data being safe. I said they can't be a trojan for anything except data.
A thumb drive can contain a flyback transformer, a battery, and a capacitor to take out a motherboard. A thumb drive can both install malware and collect data for removal from a system. A thumb drive can include a radio transceiver and a USB ethernet device to connect a system that's supposed to be airgapped to an external network.
A CD-ROM can do none of those things. Yes, you can install malware on a system via a CD-ROM. You can even do it automatically with the appropriate exploits or bad user settings. But you can't get that data out without another step, and the CD-ROM cannot provide that.
vandreulv@reddit
All of which are pretty expensive devices. And if you're aware enough of the capability of these devices being plugged into a USB port, then you're aware enough to not plug in random shit you find into a system you care about.
Seriously, you're acting like people can just buy USB Killers in bulk and just leave them around for people to find. They're pricey as fuck. So are Rubber Duckies and LAN Turtles.
And it's been YEARS since I've seen anyone carry a USB Flashdrive on their person. Why would anyone just plug random hardware in in the first place these days?
porcinechoirmaster@reddit
I work in biotech. The company I work for has customers who will not accept systems with functioning USB drives or network interfaces, and instead insist on CD-ROM drives for loading software updates for exactly the reasons I just listed. And no, "just don't let your employees plug stuff in" doesn't pass muster with them.
Again: I am not saying that we should abandon USB. I'm not saying we shouldn't practice good computer security. I am saying that there still exists a place in today's world for passive, read-only data storage. That's it, really.
I'm not exactly sure why this is controversial.
HobartTasmania@reddit
Yes, but there's no point anymore in having any physical drives inside machines either laptops or PC's. I rarely use them anymore anyway and have just one external Blue-ray drive that's USB connected. If I do actually have to use it then I just connect it to the relevant laptop/PC for as long as I need to use it for, also we have been able to USB boot from those externals for a very long time now so if you have to load an OS via a disc you can do it via an USB external drive without issues.
porcinechoirmaster@reddit
When you don't want the users of a system to have access to USB for safety or security reasons, internal makes sense.
Strazdas1@reddit
There is if you are a fan of movies. Bluray is still leaks beyond anything you can stream in terms of quality.
Ptolemaeus45@reddit
wait a second... fujitsu was killed by chinese lenovo 2024? they arent producing hardware anymore as far as i know
smarlitos_@reddit
This is neat
At the same time, I hope people keep a spare ps2, dvd player, or old laptop with a disk drives for dvd’s. There’s also always separate usb- dvd drives you can buy.
AntiGrieferGames@reddit
Wait, optical disks laptops still exist? this is a big win!
Also theres still optical disks Dekstop PCs on this date.
Uptons_BJs@reddit
The greatest laptop I ever owned was a Fujitsu- it was modular so you can swap out the optical drive for a hard drive or battery.
a60v@reddit
Panasonic still makes models that have this capability (the FZ-55 and FZ-40). It used to be quite common in normal laptops, too.
Jonny_H@reddit
I think that's pretty standard for any "business" laptop - I had Dell and Lenovo ones with similar modules.
hollow_bridge@reddit
it was extremely common in consumer laptops too. I think all plastic body laptops could do it.
logosuwu@reddit
It really stopped being the case some 15 years ago now, since batteries got much smaller and denser and it no longer made sense to put in all the extra components needed to have it modular (able to swap between components at least). Haswell and Broadwell was the last generation of quick swap batteries in general.
vandreulv@reddit
It was standard for virtually any laptop made before 2000.
Had a Pentium 133 laptop that had battery packs that would go into the CDRom bay.
hollow_bridge@reddit
Every laptop that I've ever had that had a disc drive could swap out the disc drive. One of my favorite upgrades was swapping it for a second drive bay.
renyzen@reddit
I remember there was a Lenovo where you could replace the disk drive with a 2nd GPU so you could run dual GTX750M's on a laptop
patrickhenrypdx@reddit
Didn't the Apple Powerbooks have something like that? Great gear.
TowardsTheImplosion@reddit
Way back in the day. I think the G3 PowerBook was the last of those...
SasquatchWookie@reddit
Oh how I wish the minds of Toshiba were still around.
Or mid-stage Vizio
Or early stage Panasonic
Bring back innovative mainstream hardware
Nicholas-Steel@reddit
Why the heck would it be a DVD drive and not a Blueray drive???
SamurottX@reddit
According to Fujitsu's website it is a Blu-ray drive. Not sure why the article decided to omit that detail
Strazdas1@reddit
Probably because author is not technically knowledable enough to know the difference.
Nicholas-Steel@reddit
Thanks.
Strazdas1@reddit
Just a reminder that blu-ray is still the best quality video you can buy. Optic drives arent going away as long as digital remains inferior quality (entirely by choice of sellers btw).
EasyRhino75@reddit
Flip phones were also popular in Japan for an unusually long time
IANVS@reddit
To be fair, they had way more functionality than flip phones in the West.
wankthisway@reddit
Those flip phones were smartphones long before smartphones were a thing in the US. They had live TV, web browsers, 3D games, and a lot more.
Creative-Expert8086@reddit
Lenovo China have released a new 1kg 16inch laptop with 125H recently at 700USD
suzukijimny@reddit
A much simpler time back then.
firestar268@reddit
I'd rather just get a USB DVD drive for the 1/10 times I need it. Otherwise give me bigger battery
xgiovio@reddit
I hope with mdisc support
Gippy_@reddit
I could see this being useful on a rugged PC, or maybe on a cramped flight where it isn't practical to use an external DVD/BD drive.
But that's about it... external DVD/BD drives that connect via USB are cheap enough.