Lite-on is a well-known brand that generally gets good reviews. If you like it, buy it.

Curious why you just didnt get the notebook with the dvd, rather than unplugging and packing an external around. There certainly wouldnt have been much weight difference with the built in DVD

Given booting problems with my existing 3 year old notebook I was under some pressure to buy a new machine. I found two attractive machines in my price range, under $500 and one, the one I purchased a Toshiba T135D is like a big Netbook, attractive to me. As it turns out there was also a Toshiba 14" notebook, only one pound heavier and $20 less expensive, that was the competitor in my selection process. There were many trade-offs (both ways) but my decision was driven by the AMD processor (not Celeron) and much longer life battery on the T135D and by its classy appearance and light weight and reduced size. I concluded I almost never use a DVD anyway.. I don't play games or watch movies on my computers.

But, as I am now moving my application on to the new computer I realize if I'm going to use my old MS Outlook for my business email I need to have a CD drive to load the application from my purchased copy. It is a 2002 version and works well for me. This coupled with the fact I purchased my wife an Acer Netbook last February, I have two uses for an external DVD. I would in general not carry the DVD with me when traveling. I have never needed my DVD when at meetings... that may be a misrepresentation I've done a lot of travel over the past 20 years with notebook in hand, and I suppose I used the CD then DVD a couple of times, but nothing comes to mine. All my current I/O related to meetings is via WiFi, never exchanging of hard-copy mediums.

Thanks too, Kudzy9, on the info on Lite-on

I just placed an order for the Lite-on ETAU208.96 Read/Write DVD. There is a read-only for about $10 less, and that is all I really need, but seems "penny wise" to save $10 an lose R/W.

Lite-on is a major brand in cd/dvd reader/writers so no worries there, it is the brand I have bought when I had to replace some of mine.

Remember you can do a lot of the stuff you need done by using a flash drive in the usb port.
I have not needed a cd or dvd drive for my netbook, have done everything by flash drive. I do have an external cd reader writer drive though, they can come in handy.

Yes, my thinking too, who needs the DVD anyway I have SD camera cards (not much bigger than a postage stamp) that hold gigabytes. But, as noted, no sooner than starting transferring my application onto the new machine I am forced to recall my Outlook Mail Client is on a DVD (or maybe a CD) and I don't want to learn how to copy it over to a another media to load it. After learning Lite-on is a reputable brand I ordered the read only (nice with a self storing USB cable) for something like $44 delivered. Then I had second thoughts about saving a few pennies and canceled the order and ordered the full R/W, I think it does that in all formats - not an expert here either.

I leaned on the expertise here on buying a Netbook for my wife in February... and that set me thinking "why am I carting around this big 15.6" Notebook... then that NB started having boot problems... serious boot problems. So, time to buy or fix, I decided to by and this T135D Toshiba is like a Netbook on steroids - not sure the AMD processor is all that much better than the Netbook, but it is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit so it must be a step up in computing power, plus a little larger screen (13.3") and keyboard. I almost look forward to my next trip (air and hotel) to test-drive my new ultra-slim Notebook.