Not having a disc drive when most software still requires one
10 years ago maybe. Can you even buy software on physical media these days? Apart from second-hand on Ebay, but that needs the internet of course. I used to have reasons to have a DVD-recorder, mainly copying movies....LOL! But most media capable devices these days, like smart-TVs, DLP projectors, all seem to have USB ports on them. Copy movie to USB, enjoy!
(not everyone is blessed with dedicated high speed internet or the 'cloud' just yet) and needing an external one seems a regression to the days when one needed a external floppy drive and even then it was only a limit on ultra portables or 'subnotebooks' as they were referred to. Until software is mass produced on SD cards i don't see the point in ditching the disc drive yet. there are still reasons to have a CD writer too. not being forced to use Windows is also nice.
My Satellite Pro has an external CD drive too. that was a normal thing--in 1994!
The Dell Latitude CP-series answered your concern well during its time. you could use the same bay that was normally occupied with a CD ROM drive for a spare battery or hard disk, since you could eject devices and exchange them. Quite frankly, i don't understand why that innovation died off...sure beats carrying or losing an external component.
We've now onto solid-state storage media. things like 128GB USB sticks, vs old fashioned 650MB CD-recordable.
Boot your laptop from them, store all the things you like, no need for bulky, spinning mechanical optical media. Laptops are lighter and compact, more robust, batteries last longer. One laptop we've got here is completely solid-state, a Fujitsu, no DVD and no mechanical hard-drive either, running Win 7 and Linux Mint.
There's probably someone somewhere griping that no new cars come with cassette stereos any more.
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