
Connector and cable: Drives should use standard detachable USB cables so that a frayed or broken cable doesn’t ruin the entire drive.Noise: All optical drives make noise, but the drive shouldn’t drown out the movie or show you’re trying to watch.Price: A good DVD drive shouldn’t cost more than $40, and a good Blu-ray drive should cost around $100.But if you’re burning or ripping discs, the rate at which a drive can move data from your computer’s hard drive to the disc or vice versa becomes more important. Speed: If all you’ll use your drive for is playing discs, just about any drive you buy will perform similarly.We didn’t require Blu-ray drives to support reading and writing to Ultra HD (or UHD, or 4K) Blu-ray discs, but we considered it a nice bonus if you didn’t have to pay much more for that feature. Read and write capability: DVD drives must read and write DVDs and CDs, and Blu-ray drives must read and write Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs.This laptop hovers around the $800 range, but it's well worth it. With a vibrant display, clear speakers and a satisfactory selection of ports, you'll likely be fulfilled with the Acer Aspire E 15.

If you have a little more wiggle room in your budget, we'd strongly recommend the Acer Aspire E 15 as the best laptop with a CD drive. And in this case, you won't get the standard 1080p laptop (the $499 Lenovo ThinkPad sports a 1366 x 768-pixel display). Users praise this laptop for its comfortable, clicky keyboard and decent stock of ports for all their periperhal needs, but keep in mind that it is a budget laptop - you'll have to make some trade offs.

If you can only afford a sub-$500 laptop, your best bet would be the Lenovo ThinkPad E570. The best laptop with a CD drive depends on your budget. Need a larger screen to watch your favorite shows and movies on? Our best cheap monitors page has you covered. If you're on a budget but want something more, well, modern see our best laptops for under $500 rankings. If you're a bit flexible, consider checking out our best laptops page then buying an external CD player. Of course, many of the laptops on this list are underpowered budget models. Luckily for you, there are still some laptops with CD drives on the market, and you don't need to break a sweat looking for one because we've done all the work for you. Or maybe you'd just like to have that peace of mind that your laptop has a CD drive in case you need it. Or perhaps you have a DVD collection and you'd love to watch a movie or two after plugging away for hours on your laptop.
/a-cd-ejecting-out-of-a-laptop-80486808-577ed8783df78c1e1f11b610.jpg)
You may have a large CD collection from the 90s and early 2000s that you want to pop into your laptop for some nostalgic feelings. While the laptop world ditches CD drives, also known as optical drives, it's now difficult for CD and DVD owners to find laptops that can support their optical media. Best college laptops in 2020: best laptops for students.
