Dell Ships Laptop with Blu-ray Drive

Dell on Monday became the latest manufacturer to support Sony's Blu-ray discs in its notebook computers, a move that was largely expected as Dell is a founding member behind the format. A Blu-ray drive is now available on the Dell XPS M1710 laptop, but it won't come cheap.

The XPS M1710 is Dell's high-end gaming laptop, which runs $3,699 with the Blu-ray drive. The addition will enable users to watch movies in the high-definition format (after purchasing the necessary playback software), as well as burn discs containing up to 50GB of data. The battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD is expected to heat up in the coming weeks as CES 2007 kicks off the new year in Las Vegas.