[ecking01]

Does anyone who knows the macbooks know if there are any dvd burners out there that a person could swap into a macbook to take out it's combo drive? You the same size and shape to fit instead of the combo drive.

I want a macbook for basic stuff and I don't wan't to pay an extra 200 dollars for the ability to burn dvds.

Does anyone know how hard it would be to replace the 1.83's combo drive?

[tricha6]

Well, how much are you hoping to get a Superdrive for? $100? Probably $150. So you want to void your warranty and diddle with your system for $50 in savings?

If you really must save, it may be worth considering buying an external DVD writer. Apple supports them now with iDVD. They are cheap. They are faster than internal drives. You can get them with the lightscribe option which seems kinda cool. Obviously you sacrifice portability.

Some upgrades from Apple are too expensive (RAM - 2 gig for $400 give me a break; and 100GB HD to 120GB HD for another $100 puhlease) but I don't think the 1.83 to 2.0 is really much of a savings considering what you get for it.

I know that doesn't answer any of your questions, and maybe you've thought all this out and I'm just being annoying - so if so, apologies.

[ecking01]

Nah your not being annoying.

It's just that some site in the past for other models have been able to offer superdrives for like 50 bucks, which to me is a big savings because I'm buying a macbook for myself after I split the cost with my girlfriend to help get her the 1299 model, so any money I could save myself would be bonus when you consider 2 machines.

Ah but I guess I'll just save a little longer.

[amazing]

get an external firewire/usb case, with a Pioneer 16X DL as discussed in this thread, it's much faster than any superdrive:

http://forums.macnn.com/69/mac-notebooks/295738/seeking-macbook-buying-advice-how-important/

[icruise]

I don't think you could ever get a superdrive upgrade for a laptop for $50. If you want to save a little money and still be able to burn DVDs, get an external one as people have said.

[galarneau]

The cheapest slot load notebook dvd-r's I've seen have been ~$90.