Addonics releases first portable Blu-ray drive

As Blu-ray gains in market share, it appears we’re in sort of a race to put out products that use the format the same way we use DVDs. We’ve already seen HDTVs with Blu-ray drives built-in and even a portable Blu-ray player. There are a select few computers that have been using Blu-ray drives for quite some time even. Now it looks like we have the first portable Blu-ray drive that uses eSATA and USB 2.0 from Addonics.

The drive is small, making it easy to pack in with any laptop bag for watching Blu-ray discs just about anywhere. The device can work with Windows, Mac, and Linux, presumably as long as you have software and codecs capable of playing back Blu-ray discs. It’s also capable of reading and burning CDs and DVDs, so even if your computer can’t handle Blu-ray you can still use other media with the drive.

With the drive retailing at $235, however, it just seems like a bit too much. While it is portable, it’s a lot easier to just carry around data on flash drives rather than carrying around every disc you might possibly want or need. Heck, for just $65 more you can pick up a PS3 Slim for a home Blu-Ray drive. It might be useful to some with netbooks, but again, just having the files on the hard drive or flash drive just seems to make more sense. It would be nice to play with an eSATA Blu-ray drive, but it’s just a bit too late and about $100 too expensive to really make much of a difference.

Read [Virtual Press Office]