Panasonic UJ-230 Slim Blu-ray Burner SATA (Tray Load) Drive.

This is a SLIM blu ray optical drive for laptops, which means it will be incompatible (or a pain in the ass) for drives that use regular sized players. The blu ray player is a smidge slow but there is no lag or mid-movie load times. I was really surprised the blu rays I have played so well, so this is def worth your $75 for your laptop. I'm a big computer techie and I must emphasize that this blu ray player is really great (not at all as good as I expected it to be, but much better, as I know of plenty full sized blu ray players that cost twice as much and fail to load, play, break down in a month, or even had awful mid-movie buffering!)

However, even though this is a blu ray burner, player, and DVD burner and player, if it's your desire to watch blu ray movies then you must (sadly) purchase the full Cyberlink PowerDVD program (I think it's at version 11 or 12) in order to play all blu rays, which will cost as high as $80 when not on sale. Even then, not all blu rays are guarenteed to play since the blu ray software is proprietary. Cyberlink is the best as most blu rays work, but not all. Keep this in mind when purchasing, as it ****will frustrate you.**** There are other, cheaper programs, however they work even less and may not even be worth the money. And cyberlink is not at all possible to download online for free, so you will have to spend the $80 for the latest version of Cyberlink (which will need to be re-bought as new versions come out in order to keep playing the newest blu rays, I know it's sooo expensive).

Watching blu rays on computers is barely possible without spending a ton of dough sadly, since Sony's blu ray technology is not bought out or sold to other companies at all (similar to ipods except even stricter).

Hope this helps

This unit would not work on my system, and I had to return it.

In all fairness tho, I have used Panasonic MANY times in the past,with no issues, It could be my laptop.

Buy Panasonic UJ-230 Slim Blu-ray Burner SATA (Tray Load) Drive. Now

I can't speak about what others went through as I have no knowledge of it; but I question some things. More so in this case as the drive I got was untouched new in the package.

The real review:

1) The drive is a "Matshita" drive, with a Panasonic brand on it. Those drives have good reviews, and that is where you dig for firmware (no sense in exact model here as it could be different for your drive).

2) Size The drive DOES fit the newest XPS computer; that is rated at the smaller 9.7(?) drive. I'm not sure if it would fit a "thin" machine.

3) "Faceplate" (it was there, not sure what happened to others) in Any Case, the faceplate is a "Standard Form Factor" in other words I pulled the old formed faceplate off the old drive, and put it on the new drive and it looks completely stock (no B logo, but who cares?).

No software, so you will have to download one of the many free Blu Ray players out there it works like expected.

Don't let the comment about the faceplate stop you from buying this drive.

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Nowhere in the description does it say this drive does NOT include the front bezel. The drive may work fine, but I won't be finding out as it's going back for a return. No point in putting it into a nice new HTPC when you have a busted looking drive with no bezel. Really not happy with the lack of info in this description Amazon!

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This was one of the most expensive blue ray slot load drives that I have ever bought. It works perfectly and was in the condition IK was told which was new. Will do business again, Thank You!!!